Kerschensteiner 
Three  lectures  on  vocational  training 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THREE    LECTURES    ON 
VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

. 
By  DR.  GEORG  KERSCHENSTEINER 

Director  of  Education  in  Munich  and  Corresponding 

Member  of  the  Royal  Academy  of 

Applied  Sciences  in  Erfurt. 


DELIVERED   IN  AMERICA  UNDER  THE   AUSPICES 

OF  THE   NATIONAL  SOCIETY   FOR  THE 

PROMOTION  OF  INDUSTRIAL 

EDUCATION 


PUBLISHED  BY 

THE  COMMERCIAL  CLUB  OF  CHICAGO 
ion 


/ 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  CONTINUATION 
SCHOOLS 

The  wealth  of  a  country  depends  not  only  on  the  natural 
riches  of  its  soil,  but  also  on  the  men  who  turn  these  riches 
to  account.  It  has  always  been  the  aim  of  industrial  states, 
or  of  states  that  desired  to  become  industrial,  to  produce  human 
material  more  and  more  fitted  for  their  task.  It  was  prin- 
cipally this  object  that  induced  absolute  monarchs  in  Europe 
to  establish  primary  schools.  These  schools  were  to  contribute 
tpward  making  industries,  or,  as  they  were  then  called,  manu- 
factures, a  more  productive  source  of  state  revenue. 

But  the  farther  we  penetrate  into  the  question  of  educating 
the  masses  to  industrial  capacity,  the  more  we  recognize  that 
the  problem  before  us  is  not  special  but  general,  that  it  is  in 
fact  nothing  less  than  the  problem  of  educating  the  whole  man. 
Educational  works  in  the  United  States  are  full  of  this  dis- 
covery. In  a  description  of  the  Lynn  works  Alexander 
Magnus  says : 

There  are  three  main  problems  that  enter  into  production :  the  ma- 
chine problem,  the  material  problem,  the  men  problem.  The  latter  is  the 
most  difficult  problem,  but  also  the  most  important  one,  in  competitive 
activity. 

In  an  article  in  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  on  indus- 
trial education  I  find  the  sentence: 

There  is  a  growing  feeling  that  is  gaining  rapidly  in  strength,  that  in 
industrial  education  the  human  element  must  be  recognized,  and  cannot 
be  so  disregarded  as  to  make  the  future  workers  mere  automatic  machines. 

This  is  perfectly  true.  The  one-sided  education  of  work- 
men to  dexterity  is  only  an  apparent  solution  of  the  problem. 


825099, 


2  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

Of  course  industry  requires  an  army  of  men  trained  to  per- 
form their  special  tasks  as  well  as  it  is  possible  to  perform 
them.  But  dexterity  only  attains  its  full  value  when  it  is  based 
on  insight.  And  one  more  thing  is  necessary.  We  require  not 
only  dexterity  and  insight  but  also  the  education  of  the  moral 
character.  Perhaps  this  development  of  character  is  the  most 
important  part  even  in  industrial  education,  for  firmness  and 
principle  will  lead  a  man  to  acquire  dexterity  and  insight,  but 
dexterity  and  insight  are  not  always  placed  in  the  service  of 
character. 

I  do  not  assert  that  it  always  makes  itself  immediately  felt, 
when  any  branch  of  industry  neglects  to  train  its  workmen  to 
insight  and  character.  Many  industries  may  profit  for  a  longer 
or  shorter  period  by  their  one-sided  purely  selfish  train- 
ing. But  if  all  the  industries  of  a  state  were  to  confine  them- 
selves to  the  development  of  dexterity,  or  even  of  dexterity 
and  intelligence,  the  disadvantages  of  this  method  would  soon 
make  themselves  apparent.  For  neither  men,  nor  the  states 
which  they  form,  nor  the  industries  which  they  carry  on,  can 
live  an  isolated  life.  They  are  all  bound  together  by  more 
or  less  common  interests,  linked  together  by  a  thousand  chains. 
The  individual  is  not  only  a  workman  in  one  branch  or  another, 
he  is  also  a  citizen  of  the  state.  And  as  a  citizen  his  welfare 
and  interests  are  inseparably  connected  with  the  welfare  and 
interests  of  all  other  citizens.  Every  form  of  education,  what- 
ever its  special  aims  may  be,  must  seek  to  further  the  peace- 
ful disentanglement  of  these  interwoven  interests — at  least,  that 
is  to  say,  every  form  the  realization  of  which  requires  schools 
supported  by  public  money. 

It  might  be  urged — and  I  know  that  Americans  favor  this 
view — that  it  is  not  incumbent  on  the  general  community  to 
provide  more  than  a  general  education.  To  do  this  is  both  its 
right  and  its  duty.  But  it  has  no  duty  and  no  right  to  use 
public  money  for  purposes  of  specialized  forms  of  education. 
This  assertion  cannot  be  justified.  I  have  the  conviction  even 
that  education  for  a  calling  offers  us  the  very  best  foundation 
for  the  general  education  of  a  man.  We  are  far  too  much 


FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  CONTINUATION  SCHOOLS          3 

inclined  to  assume,  both  in  the  old  world  and  in  the  new,  that 
it  is  possible  to  educate  a  man  without  reference  to  some 
special  calling.  This  assumption  is  erroneous.  The  only  part 
of  it  that  is  true  is  that  one  calling  requires  more  preparatory 
education  than  another,  and  that  in  our  higher  schools  a  com- 
mon preparatory  education  can  be  given  simultaneously  for 
several  learned  and  technical  professions,  exactly  as  the  pri- 
mary schools  prepare  their  pupils  for  every  kind  of  calling. 
We  are  also  still  far  too  much  inclined  to  assume  that  early 
education  for  a  calling  must  necessarily  be  a  narrow  and  one- 
sided education.  Yet  it  lies  in  our  power  to  make  an  education 
for  a  calling  as  many-sided  as  any  education  can  be.  Well- 
nigh  every  calling,  if  treated  with  sufficient  thoroughness,  nat- 
urally involves  an  enlargement  of  the  field  of  conception  and 
activity.  Science  enters  today  into  the  simplest  work  and  in- 
cites all  possessed  of  the  necessary  gifts  to  develop  their  knowl- 
edge, their  dexterity,  and  their  initiative.  Indeed  experience 
has  shown  that  the  path  of  early  education  for  a  calling  may 
lead  to  very  much  better  results  than  the  path  of  early  general 
education  with  no  definite  calling  as  its  goal.  We  might  say, 
the  useful  man  must  be  the  predecessor  of  the  ideal  man. 
Everyone  must  be  able  to  do  some  good  and  thorough  work, 
though  it  be  of  the  simplest  kind,  of  one  sort  or  another.  Not 
till  then  will  he  be  able  not  only  to  satisfy  his  fellow-men  and 
be  of  use  to  his  country,  but  also  to  make  his  own  life  of 
value  to  himself.  And  in  the  same  measure  as  our  lives  gain 
value  for  ourselves  do  we  attain  power  to  reach  a  higher  stage 
of  culture. 

If  then  the  early  education  for  a  calling  need  by  no  means 
be  one-sided  or  devoid  of  general  value,  if  rather  it  is  for  most 
men,  and  especially  for  workers  in  industries,  trades,  and  traffic, 
well-nigh  the  only  way  to  reach  a  higher  stage  of  culture,  it 
cannot  be  regarded  as  a  private  matter;  it  becomes  a  matter 
of  the  community,  a  matter  of  the  state.  The  reason  for  this 
does  not  lie  in  the  advantages  procured  for  any  single  branch 
of  industry,  but  in  the  fact  that  this  is  the  only  road  to  civic 
education.  Everyone  who  lives  in  a  state  and  enjoys  its  pro- 


4  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

tection  must  contribute  through  his  work,  directly  or  indirectly, 
to  further  the  object  of  the  state  as  a  community  for  purposes 
of  justice  and  civilization.  Not  till  then  is  he  a  useful  mem- 
ber of  the  state.  And  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  the 
duty  of  all  schools  supported  by  public  means  to  educate  useful 
members  of  the  state. 

Now  if  every  individual  is  to  contribute  by  means  of  his 
work  to  the  general  welfare  of  the  community,  our  first  business 
must  be  to  provide  him  with  the  best  opportunities  of  develop- 
ing his  skill  and  capacity  for  work.  But  the  development  of 
skill  in  his  calling  must  not  be  placed  only  in  the  service  of 
industry,  or  limited  by  industry.  Its  first  object  is  the  develop- 
ment of  a  man's  own  joy  in  work  and  thereby  of  his  joy  in 
life.  For  true  joy  in  work  can  only  grow  out  of  real  capacity 
for  it.  Thus  the  skill  in  work  and  the  consequent  joy  in  work 
that  are  cultivated  in  our  trade  schools  prove  themselves  educa- 
tional factors  of  the  very  highest  importance.  Through  them 
we  are  able  to  appeal  to  the  hearts  of  the  boys  and  girls  of 
our  working  classes.  We  can  educate  no  one  who  is  not 
happy  in  his  work;  and  this  is  the  point  where  we  can  inti- 
mately combine  general  and  technical  education.  And  there  is 
no  other  way  of  doing  this.  It  is  possible  to  make  use  of 
skill  in  work  and  joy  in  work  in  an  absolutely  egoistic  sense, 
and  it  is  in  this  egoistic  sense,  unfortunately,  that  most  tech- 
nical schools  approach  their  task.  They  only  concern  them- 
selves with  the  individual,  whom  they  endeavor  to  make  as 
skilful  as  possible,  while  they  pay  no  attention  to  the  class 
as  a  whole.  This  is  also  the  weak  side  of  factory  schools, 
which  might  otherwise  be  such  admirable  educational  institu- 
tions for  training  intelligent  and  skilful  workmen  and  artisans. 
It  cannot  be  the  interest  of  the  manufacturer  to  give  all  his 
apprentices  an  equally  good  special  and  general  education. 
He  only  concerns  himself  with  the  best  among  them,  and  not 
those  with  the  best  character  but  with  the  best  intelligence  and 
manual  skill.  Public  schools  have  a  very  different  object. 
They  can  and  they  must  accustom  the  pupil  betimes  to  use  his 
joy  in  work  and  his  skill  in  work  in  the  service  of  his  fellow- 


FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  CONTINUATION  SCHOOLS          $ 

pupils  and  of  his  fellow-men,  as  well  as  in  his  own.  It  is  in 
their  power  to  repress  the  general  tendency  of  human  nature  to 
employ  our  gifts  only  for  our  own  advantage.  And  it  is  their 
duty  to  repress  this  tendency,  for  if  everyone  were  to  use  his 
gifts  only  for  his  own  advantage  there  would  be  an  end  to 
all  progress  both  for  the  industrial  development  of  the  nation 
and  for  the  state  as  a  whole. 

Pupils  who  have  learned  in  schools  of  this  kind  to  place 
their  joy  in  work  and  their  skill  in  work  at  the  service  of 
their  comrades  will  then  be  able  to  learn  the  lesson  that  every 
school  ought  to  teach,  of  uniting  readiness  of  service,  consid- 
eration for  others,  and  loyalty,  with  insight  into  the  aims  of 
the  state  community.  Naturally  the  limits  of  this  insight  will 
depend  on  the  intelligence  and  age  of  the  pupils.  But  even 
when  the  teacher  is  compelled  to  be  content  with  little,  the 
public  school  will  always  have  means  to  accustom  its  pupils 
to  the  habitual  exercise  of  civic  virtues. 

Our  present  schools  have  not  yet  fully  grasped  the  meaning 
of  this  threefold  task :  first,  education  to  skill  in  work  and 
joy  in  work;  secondly,  education  to  readiness  of  service,  con- 
sideration for  others,  and  loyalty  to  schoolfellows  and  to  the 
school;  and,  thirdly,  education  to  insight  into  the  aims  of  the 
state  community.  Well-organized  schools  fulfil  the  first  task, 
the  development  of  personal  capacity.  It  still  remains  to  en- 
large them  to  schools  for  social  service,  and  our  most  important 
task  is  to  provide  such  schools  for  the  mass  of  the  population, 
based  on  training  for  a  trade. 

But  the  schools  for  the  vast  majority  of  our  fellow-citizens, 
the  real  schools  of  the  people,  do  not  even  suffice  to  fulfil  the 
first  task,  for  they  leave  off  precisely  at  the  point  at  which 
education  by  means  of  and  for  a  special  calling  begins.  This 
is  the  same  in  the  United  States  as  in  Germany.  Not  only 
the  struggle  for  life  but  also  the  struggle  for  education  com- 
mences for  millions  of  our  country-men  at  the  age  of  four- 
teen. The  doors  of  the  primary  school  have  closed  for  them,  the 
doors  of  a  higher  school  open  only  to  the  favored  few.  The  com- 
petition for  daily  bread  drives  the  half-grown  boys  and  girls  into 


6  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

the  market.  They  take  what  they  find.  True,  the  question  of 
the  children's  future  has  peered  out  of  the  background  in  the 
mind  of  parents  and  relatives,  but  there  has  been  no  time  to 
answer  it.  Their  eyes  are  fixed  on  the  necessities  of  the  mo- 
ment. Posts  are  valued  at  the  salary  they  offer,  however  un- 
favorable the  conditions  may  be  for  intellectual  or  moral 
development.  Some  few  have  the  force  of  character  to  struggle 
through  untoward  circumstances.  Their  intelligence,  their  will- 
power, perhaps  also  their  home  training,  gives  them  strength 
to  overcome  the  forces  that  drag  men  down.  Some  few  have 
the  good  fortune  to  get  into  a  factory  or  shop  that  has  a  nat- 
ural interest  in  well-trained  workmen.  Some  few  find  employers 
who  do  not  regard  the  young  hand  as  a  cheap  workman  but 
as  a  human  being  who  must  be  educated.  But  the  innumerable 
mass  of  weaker  and  less  fortunate  youths,  of  whom  thousands 
and  thousands  are  also  valuable  human  material,  and  the  in- 
numerable mass  of  real  capacity,  that  find  no  warm-hearted 
employer  and  no  employment  demanding  intellect,  drift  like 
shipwrecked  men  on  the  stormy  ocean.  Some  reach  the  haven, 
after  a  loss  of  many  years;  the  majority  lead  a  life  never 
brightened  by  the  sun  of  joy  in  work.  No  one  has  ever  taught 
them  to  seek  the  true  blessing  of  work.  No  one  has  ever  taken 
the  trouble  to  point  them  to  anything  farther  ahead  than  the 
daily  task  by  which  they  must  earn  their  bread  their  whole 
lives  long.  People  tell  us  industry  requires  thousands  of  hands 
fit  to  perform  the  same  manipulation  with  the  same  unerring 
skill  hour  by  hour,  month  by  month,  year  by  year.  I  fully 
believe  that  industry  does  require  them.  Division  of  labor  is 
the  vital  element  of  industry.  But  industry  is  not  the  aim 
of  human  society.  The  aim  of  society  is  the  increase  of  justice 
and  culture.  And  if  industry  permanently  continues  to  reck- 
lessly disregard  this  aim  it  becomes  a  danger,  not  only  for  the 
state,  but  also,  in  the  end,  for  itself  as  well.  A  democratic  or 
even  a  constitutional  state  that  is  ruled  exclusively  by  the  lust 
of  gain,  by  money  and  the  machine  slaves  that  money  buys,  is 
doomed  to  inevitable  ruin,  as  soon  as  the  natural  riches  of  the 
soil  become  exhausted  and  the  population  becomes  too  dense. 


FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  CONTINUATION  SCHOOLS          ^ 

Even  the  industrial  state  cannot  dispense  with  strong  moral 
forces.  These  forces  grow,  but  not  in  a  people  of  machine 
slaves  and  money  princes.  Moral  forces,  like  skill  in  work, 
grow  on  no  other  soil  than  that  of  joy  in  work. 

Now  it  cannot  be  one  of  the  first  objects  of  industry  to 
further  the  development  of  a  country's  moral  forces.  Its  first 
object  is  the  profitable  use  of  economic  forces.  The  struggle 
for  existence  compels  it  to  strain  these  forces  to  the  uttermost, 
to  press  the  greatest  manual  and  intellectual  capacity .  into  its 
service,  and  therefore  to  train  its  workmen  to  the  highest  degree 
of  dexterity.  The  capital  invested  in  it  clamors  with  reckless 
insistence  for  its  interest.  No  one  has  better  represented  the 
psychology  of  gain-seeking  capital  than  the  great  English 
painter  George  Frederick  Watts  in  his  picture  "Mammon,"  that 
hangs  in  the  Tate  Gallery  in  London.  It  is  true  that  capital 
brings  untold  blessings  to  men.  But  it  rarely  unveils  this 
second  face  until  it  has  ceased  to  be  capital  hungering  for  in- 
crease or  until  it  has  discovered,  as  it  must  sooner  or  later 
discover,  that  the  third  factor,  moral  capacity,  cannot  be  neg- 
lected with  impunity.  And  even  after  this  discovery  it  long 
seeks  to  defend  its  position  by  ever  stronger  accentuation  of 
the  need  of  pure  skill,  sometimes  even  until  it  is  too  late  for 
its  own  undertakings  and  for  the  state  that  has  left  it  free  play. 

There  is  no  escape  from  this  natural  fate  of  industry  but 
state  intervention,  not  too  long  postponed,  to  supplement  the 
one-sided  education  afforded  by  industry,  trade,  and  traffic. 
It  is  in  fact  an  entirely  new  duty  that  has  arisen  for  the  com- 
munity since  the  economic  revolutions  of  the  last  century.  It 
arose  not  only  in  the  interests  of  industry  but  in  the  most 
vital  interests  of  the  community  itself.  It  is  the  imperative  duty 
of  the  state  to  create  school  organizations  which  deal  with  the 
trade-training  of  boys  and  girls,  which  enter  into  the  question 
with  the  utmost  thoroughness,  enlarging  and  deepening  it,  and 
thereby  awakening  in  boys  and  girls  many-sided  capacity  for 
work  and  a  living  joy  in  work. 

It  will  not  be  the  object  of  this  new  school  to  replace  the 
training  now  given  in  the  practical  "work  of  factory  and  handi- 


8  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

craft.  It  is  impossible  to  replace  the  school  of  life,  hard  and 
yet  so  efficient,  quite  apart  from  the  fact  that  it  would  be  a 
financial,  economic,  and  social  impossibility  to  remove  all  youth- 
ful workers  from  workshops,  offices,  and  factories,  in  order  to 
train  them  in  special  schools.  It  is  true  there  are  some  such 
schools  that  are  intended  to  take  the  place  of  apprenticeship. 
We  find  them  in  all  civilized  states.  But  they  are  exceptions. 
As  exceptions  they  may  sometimes  do  good  work,  but  seldom 
in  the  sense  for  which  they  were  founded.  For  the  better  such 
handicraft  and  industrial  schools  are  organized,  the  more  surely 
do  they  outstep  their  intended  limits.  Their  pupils  are  no  longer 
satisfied  with  the  position  of  workmen,  and  even  those  among 
them  whose  intelligence  and  skill  give  them  no  claims  to  high 
posts  nevertheless  seek  to  attain  them. 

The  schools  that  we  are  considering  here  are  continuations 
of  the  primary  schools,  and  they  can  be  organized  in  various 
ways.  I  say,  they  are  a  continuation  of  the  compulsory  primary 
school,  that  is  to  say,  a  school  compulsory  without  exception 
for  all  who  do  not  go  to  a  higher  school.  The  continuation 
schools  'accompany  boys  and  girls  during  their  apprenticeship 
to  a  trade,  and  do  not  forget  those  who  are  forced  to  spend 
the  spring-time  of  their  lives  as  day  laborers,  messenger  boys, 
and  unskilled  workmen,  far  from  the  paradise  of  joy  in  work. 
They  fulfil  two  purposes:  first,  youthful  workers  and  appren- 
tices are  still  at  the  disposal  of  trade  and  industry;  second,  no 
citizen  of  the  state  is  left  without  an  education  extending  up 
to  his  eighteenth  year.  The  completeness  of  the  school  organi- 
zation depends  on  the  means  which  society  can  provide  for  the 
purpose  and  on  the  sacrifices  which  commerce,  trade,  and  in- 
dustry are  ready  and  able  to  make.  The  schools  are  not  merely 
technical  or  trade  schools.  They  only  make  use  of  the  pupil's 
trade  as  the  basis  of  their  educational  work.  The  trade-training 
which  they  give  is  not  the  object  of  the  school.  However 
thorough  this  training  in  a  continuation  school,  for  instance, 
in  Munich,  is,  it  is  still  only  the  starting-point  for  the  wider 
general  training,  for  the  education  in  practical  and  theoretical 


FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  CONTINUATION  SCHOOLS          9 

thinking,  in  consideration  for  others,  in  devotion  to  common 
interests,  in  social  service  for  the  state  community. 

We  Germans  call  them  simply  continuation  schools.  The 
conviction  of  their  necessity  for  the  whole  life  of  the  state  has 
taken  possession  of  the  entire  population  more  and  more  during 
the  last  twenty  years.  In  South  Germany  there  is  no  city  or 
town,  however  small,  without  one  such  school,  at  least  for  all 
boys.  In  North  Germany  the  great  industrial  town  of  Essen 
is  the  only  larger  town  in  which  such  a  school  is  wanting. 
These  schools  are  compulsory  in  Bavaria,  Wurttemberg,  Sachsen, 
Baden,  and  Hessen,  for  both  town  and  country  population, 
up  to  the  age  of  sixteen,  seventeen,  or  eighteen.  They  are  not 
everywhere  of  equal  educational  value.  There  are  still  many 
town  executives  that  have  not  yet  been  able  to  relinquish  the 
old  traditions  out  of  which  the  schools  arose  as  places  for 
repetition  of  elementary  school  work.  Not  all  those  who  are 
called  upon  to  give  judgment  in  this  matter  are  thus  far  pene- 
trated by  the  deep  conviction  that  they  have  to  deal  with  an 
independent  school  organism,  requiring  exactly  the  same  budget, 
the  same  solicitude,  and  the  same  possibilities  of  expansion, 
as  the  primary  schools.  But  everywhere  the  organizations  are 
progressing,  everywhere  the  representatives  of  industry  and 
trade  are,  with  few  exceptions,  beginning  to  realize  that  this 
new  form  of  school  can  prove  a  blessing  whenever  its  inner 
organization  adapts  itself  to  the  calling  of  the  boy  or  girl. 
Everywhere  have  these  schools  become  an  important  affair  of 
the  towns  and  receive  the  willing  support  of  the  governments. 
The  state  subsidies  in  Prussia,  which  amounted  to  half  a  million 
marks  in  1885,  had  risen  in  1908  to  three  millions.  The  num- 
ber of  schools  in  Prussia  rose  from  664,  with  58,000  pupils, 
to  2,100  schools  with  360,000  pupils.  In  Wurttemberg  a  law 
was  passed  in  1906  requiring  every  town  of  over  five  thousand 
inhabitants  to  organize  continuation  schools  for  all  apprentices 
in  commerce,  industry,  and  trade.  Bavaria  is  preparing  a  similar 
law  to  transform  the  compulsory  Sunday  school  for  apprentices, 
which  has  existed  for  the  last  hundred  years,  with  two  hours' 
instruction,  into  a  continuation  school  with  six  hours'  instruc- 


10  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

tion,  for  many  country  parishes.  The  Bavarian  towns  have 
already  established  continuation  schools  everywhere.  Many 
Swiss  cantons,  especially  Zurich,  have  done  the  same,  and  some 
Austrian  crownlands,  especially  Lower  Austria  with  the  city  of 
Vienna,  have  taken  up  the  idea  of  developing  the  continuation 
school  in  the  sense  above  indicated.  In  Vienna  this  autumn  a 
central  building  has  been  opened  for  a  continuation  school,  with 
something  like  sixty  workshops,  at  a  cost  of  eight  million 
crowns.  And  in  1908  a  law  was  passed  in  Scotland  permitting 
every  town  to  establish  day  continuation  schools  for  apprentices 
of  both  sexes. 

We  must  now  consider  from  what  points  of  view  the  organi- 
zation of  these  schools  must  be  undertaken.  The  question  will 
be  answered  by  the  actual  conditions  under  which  the  pupils 
live.  If  the  continuation  school,  which  can  only  take  the  pupils 
under  its  discipline  for  a  small  part  of  the  week,  is  to  exercise 
an  educational  influence  on  them,  it  must  seek  to  take  hold  of 
the  pupils  by  their  egoistic  interests  in  life,  and  to  ennoble 
these  interests  in  the'  process.  The  egoistic  interests  of  the 
pupils  are  contained  in  their  daily  work.  The  conditions  under 
which  they  carry  on  this  work  are  in  most  cases  very  unfa- 
vorable, especially  when  the  pupils  are  workers  in  large  in- 
dustries. The  best  thing  that  the  school  can  do  here  is  to  raise 
the  pupils'  joy  in  their  work.  By  so  doing  it  is  of  use  not  only 
to  the  pupils  but  also  to  the  industry.  But  it  can  only  raise 
the  pupil's  joy  in  work  by  placing  the  practical  work  of  the 
pupil  himself  in  the  center  of  all  school  work  and  by  teaching 
the  pupil  to  execute  it  as  thoroughly  as  possible,  to  think  out 
the  processes  of  the  work,  to  give  reasons  for  them,  and  to 
make  himself  master  of  them.  Thus  it  must  be  the  business 
of  the  school  to  group  the  organization  of  teaching  round  this 
work,  which  is  carried  on  in  special  workshops,  laboratories, 
and  other  similar  places.  All  other  teaching,  commercial,  scien- 
tific, artistic,  and  moral,  is  brought  into  intimate  connection 
with  it.  This  enables  the  school  by  degrees  more  and  more  to 
enlarge  the  purely  technical  and  mechanical  training  for  a  given 
calling  and  to  let  it  take  the  form  of  ever-widening  intellectual 


FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  CONTINUATION  SCHOOLS        1 1 

and  moral  discipline.  Most  industries  and  trades  as  well  as 
commerce  and  agriculture  allow  of  considerable  development 
in  these  directions.  The  degree  of  general  culture  which  the 
school  can  offer  in  these  lines  is  not  determined  by  the  trade 
but  solely  by  the  time  which  the  school  has  at  its  disposal  and 
the  intellectual  powers  of  the  pupils.  In  spite  of  all  solicitude 
for  the  general  education  of  its  pupils,  the  school  always  re- 
mains on  the  firm  ground  of  the  real  life  by  which  the  pupil 
is  daily  and  hourly  surrounded. 

In  all  large  towns  and  in  all  purely  agricultural  parishes  it 
is  always  possible  to  gather  most  youthful  workers  together 
according  to  their  calling  in  special  continuation  schools,  in  the 
center  of  which  this  calling  stands.  This  kind  of  continuation 
school  ought  to  be  made  compulsory  for  all  boys  and  girls  up 
to  the  age  of  seventeen  or  eighteen,  or  in  any  case  as  long  as 
apprenticeship  lasts.  No  reason  exists  why  these  schools  should 
not  be  made  compulsory.  The  state  has  established  the  com- 
pulsory primary  school  because  it  has  recognized  the  necessity 
of  a  certain  amount  of  culture  for  all  the  citizens  of  the  state; 
the  same  recognition  must  lead  to  the  compulsory  continua- 
tion school.  There  are  certain  duties  that  every  citizen  must 
take  upon  himself,  in  the  interest  of  the  welfare  of  the  state. 

The  time  to  be  allotted  to  the  continuation  school  must  de- 
pend on  the  means  at  its  disposal.  I  can  imagine  cases  in  which 
it  might  amount  to  two  or  three  hours  daily.  In  Germany  it 
varies  from  six  to  twelve  hours  a  week.  As  long  as  it  is  not 
reduced  to  less  than  six  hours  weekly,  quantity  is  less  impor- 
tant than  quality.  The  evening  hours  must  be  excluded.  Even- 
ing schools  can  only  be  established  for  voluntary  pupils.  Those 
who  possess  sufficient  intellectual,  moral,  and  physical  strength 
will  attend  these  evening  classes  in  addition  to  the  morning 
school,  and  not  only  for  a  time  but  consistently  and  regularly. 
The  case  is  quite  different  for  the  majority  of  young  persons, 
who  do  not  possess  this  moral  and  intellectual  power  but  never- 
theless stand  in  need  of  education.  For  them  it  is  of  the  first 
importance  that  instruction  should  take  place  during  the  day, 
within  their  hours  of  work,  that  the  teacher  may  not  have  to 


12  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

deal  with  a  will  still  further  weakened  by  fatigue.  In  Germany 
we  have  entirely  given  up  holding  compulsory  continuation 
classes  in  the  evening,  when  neither  teacher  nor  pupil,  especially 
in  the  winter  months,  is  equal  to  his  task.  Most  German  states 
grant  a  subsidy  only  to  towns  that  hold  their  continuation  classes 
before  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening.  This  is  one  of  the  cases 
in  which  sacrifices  must  be  made  by  employers,  by  giving  their 
apprentices  the  requisite  time  for  school  during  the  hours  of 
work.  The  will  to  make  this  sacrifice  was  often  extremely 
weak  on  the  part  of  masters  and  manufacturers,  but  it  received 
powerful  support  in  the  trade-regulation  law  of  the  German 
Empire,  issued  in  the  year  1897.  According  to  paragraph  120 
of  these  regulations  every  employer  is  put  under  the  obligation 
to  dismiss  his  apprentices  from  work  at  the  hours  appointed  by 
the  town  for  school  purposes,  under  penalty  of  a  fine.  I  must 
add  that  the  masters  and  manufacturers,  especially  of  South 
Germany,  are  almost  unanimously  reconciled  to  this  order  of 
things.  Indeed  some  employers  and  guilds  in  Munich  have 
offered  to  send  me  apprentices  for  longer  instruction  than  the 
means  at  my  disposal  permitted  me  to  provide. 

The  joy  in  work  which  diffuses  itself  throughout  these 
schools  must  not  be  placed  only  in  the  service  of  intellectual 
and  technical  training,  but  no  less  in  the  service  of  moral  train- 
ing, or,  as  I  call  it,  of  civic  education.  For  this  reason  the 
instruction  must  be  organized  as  early  as  possible  from  the 
standpoint  of  free  community  of  labor.  Only  in  this  free  com- 
munity of  labor  can  the  two  fundamental  civic  virtues  be  de- 
veloped, namely,  consideration  for  others  and  loyalty  to  others' 
work.  The  workshops  of  the  continuation  schools,  as  we  have 
them  in  Munich,  afford  every  facility  for  carrying  out  this 
system :  practical  work  leads  in  itself  to  the  association  of  many 
hands  for  a  common  purpose,  in  other  words,  to  communities 
of  labor.  But  not  only  the  practical  instruction  in  school  work- 
shops and  school  gardens  lends  itself  to  this  system ;  it  can  be 
applied  with  equal  success  to  instruction  in  physics  and  chem- 
istry, arithmetic,  geometry,  or  gymnastics.  Only  at  the  first 
stage,  when  it  is  a  question  of  initiating  the  pupil  into  the 


FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  CONTINUATION  SCHOOLS        13 

elements  of  a  subject,  is  it  necessary  to  limit  the  instruction 
to  him  alone  and  seek  to  secure  his  individual  progress.  The 
individual  must  have  attained  a  certain  degree  of  proficiency 
before  he  can  join  a  group  for  purposes  of  common  action. 
That  applies  to  the  embryonic  citizen  as  much  as  to  the  adult. 
But  in  all  other  respects,  and  in  all  schools,  the  whole  plan 
of  education  must  aim  at  turning  as  much  school  work  as  pos- 
sible into  work  that  can  be  done  in  common,  at  so  arranging 
the  tasks  and  the  whole  order  of  the  schools  that  smaller  or 
larger  groups,  or  all  the  pupils  together,  are  interested  in  the 
success  of  the  work  and  are  responsible  for  it. 

There  are  two  other  factors  that  serve  this  end  in  the  con- 
tinuation schools.  The  first  is  the  association  of  pupils  in 
groups  for  free  communities  of  labor,  for  purposes  of  self- 
improvement,  of  amusement,  of  physical  training,  or  of  practical 
charity.  This  is  nothing  new  in  England  or  America.  On  the 
contrary,  we  in  Germany  are  indebted  to  your  schools  for  the 
idea,  and  have  much  to  do  before  we  shall  succeed  in  making 
it  take  root  with  us.  We  have  nothing  in  our  higher  or  lower 
schools  to  correspond  to  your  leagues,  societies,  fraternities, 
gymnastic  associations,  debating  clubs,  clubs  for  musical  pur- 
poses, etc.  Many  of  these  associations  are  admirably  adapted 
for  the  continuation  schools,  and  can  be  placed  under  the  direct 
supervision  of  the  pupils  themselves.  It  is  possible  to  intro- 
duce a  regular  system  of  self-government  in  other  things  i-.s 
well  into  the  continuation  schools,  if  only  one  condition  is 
fulfilled.  The  head  of  the  school  and  his  teachers  must  them- 
selves be  adept  in  the  government  of  their  own  school  and 
must  know  how  to  enlist  the  various  student  associations  in  the 
service  of  school  interests. 

The  second  factor  is  the  co-operation  of  the  employers  in 
the  trade  taught  at  the  school,  in  the  common  fulfilment  of 
the  school  tasks.  This  second  factor  has  been  little  realized  in 
Germany,  generally  not  at  all.  In  Munich,  however,  I  have 
endeavored,  wherever  it  was  feasible,  to  gain  the  interest  of 
the  employers  for  the  school  by  conceding  them  certain  rights 
and  imposing  certain  duties.  I  will  tell  the  manner  in  which 


14  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

this  was  done  in  my  second  lecture.  We  must  confess  that  the 
interest  of  employers  in  their  apprentices'  education  has  not 
increased  during  the  last  thirty  years.  We  should  gladly  adopt 
every  means  in  our  power  to  awaken  it  afresh.  The  best  plan 
is  to  induce  the  employers  to  make  not  only  pecuniary  but 
also  personal  sacrifices  for  the  school,  even  when  the  school  is 
a  public  one.  We  do  not  value  a  thing  until  it  has  cost  us 
something.  By  these  means  we  enlarge  the  field  of  education 
and  the  community  of  labor  at  the  same  time.  We  accustom 
a  greater  number  of  persons  through  the  school  to  take  not  only 
a  commercial  but  also  a  purely  human  interest  in  the  apprentices 
and  to  bear  their  share  in  the  cares  of  education.  The  plan 
has  proved  itself  an  excellent  one  in  most  cases,  though  not  in 
all.  The  general  recognition  that  the  Munich  continuation 
schools  now  enjoy  on  all  sides  is  in  large  part  to  be  attributed 
to  the  adoption  of  this  plan. 

When  the  continuation  school  has  by  these  means  become 
a  true  educational  institution,  not  only  for  technical  but  also 
for  moral  education,  then  it  will  also  have  become  a  suitable 
medium  for  civic  education  and  instruction.  All  teaching  as 
to  the  aims  and  tasks  of  the  state  and  the  common  interests 
of  all  members  of  the  state  has  but  little  value  as  long  as  this 
teaching  does  not  fall  on  ground  already  made  receptive  and 
fertile  by  corresponding  habits  of  life.  This  applies  especially 
to  schools  like  the  German  continuation  schools,  with  their 
limited  hours  of  instruction  and  the  quality  of  their  pupils, 
who  have  so  frequently  received  no  good  home  training.  The 
most  thorough  acquaintance  with  all  the  institutions  of  the 
state  and  all  the  duties  and  rights  of  the  citizens  does  not  in 
itself,  as  we  know,  suffice  to  make  a  citizen.  A  man  may  even 
be  an  admirable  teacher  of  civic  science  and  a  first-class  villain 
at  the  same  time.  We  cannot  develop  character  by  teaching 
and  precept  until  the  organization  of  school  and  instruction 
has  been  laid  out  with  the  object  of  accustoming  the  pupil  as 
far  as  possible  to  fair  and  upright  dealing.  As  to  the  form  that 
this  civic  teaching  should  take,  I  need  say  far  less  in  your 
country  than  in  Germany,  where  civic  teaching  was  until  quite 


FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  CONTINUATION  SCHOOLS        1$ 

recently  an  unheard-of  thing,  and  where  people  have  learned 
by  degrees  that  civic  teaching  must  become  one  of  the  funda- 
mental tasks  of  all  public  schools,  as  soon  as  the  pupil  is  ready  to 
receive  it.  A  year  ago  I  came  across  an  excellent  American  book 
which  showed  me  with  how  much  common-sense  and  insight  this 
subject  is  already  treated  in  your  schools  and  which  in  my  writ- 
ings and  speeches  I  have  repeatedly  recommended  my  German 
countrymen  to  study.  It  is  the  book  of  Dunn's,  entitled  Com- 
munity and  Citizen,  which  appeared  in  the  autumn  of  1909. 
The  book  can  be  admirably  applied  to  continuation  schools,  and 
I  hope  that  some  of  my  teachers  in  Munich  will  before  long 
translate  it  into  German,  with  the  necessary  revision  of  those 
parts  that  refer  to  exclusively  American  conditions.  In  my  next 
lecture  I  propose  to  describe  the  details  which  show  more  clearly 
how  we  give  civic  instruction  in  our  Munich  continuation  schools. 
The  more  we  are  able  to  base  civic  instruction  on  personal  ex- 
perience, that  is,  on  the  independent  investigations  and  observa- 
tions of  the  pupils,  the  more  productive  it  will  become. 

The  question  remains  whether  the  education  of  the  masses 
which  we  call  by  the  name  of  continuation  school  in  Germany, 
and  which  we  have  realized  in  Munich  and  in  some  few  country 
towns,  is  equally  practicable  in  the  United  States.  One  great 
difficulty  is  doubtless  the  fact  that  in  American  trades  and  in- 
dustries, if  I  am  rightly  informed,  apprenticeship,  as  far  as  it 
still  exists,  does  not  begin  before  the  age  of  sixteen,  and  that 
therefore  so  many  of  your  boys  and  girls  lose  two  of  the  years 
that  would  be  most  valuable  for  systematic  education  between 
the  primary  school  and  the  commencement  of  apprenticeship 
It  should  be  the  first  care  of  educators  to  fill  this  great  gap, 
either  by  prolonging  the  term  of  elementary  education  or  by 
letting  apprenticeship  begin  earlier,  as  it  does  in  Germany.  As 
a  rule  both  boys  and  girls  are  ready  to  enter  a  calling  at  the  close 
of  their  fourteenth  year.  In  Germany  at  least  we  have  no  reason 
to  be  dissatisfied  with  our  experience  in  this  direction.  From 
an  educational  point  of  view  it  is  desirable  to  make  fourteen 
the  age  for  commencing,  for  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  working 
at  a  trade  is  or  might  be  an  essential  factor  in  the  formation  of 


16  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

character.  Nothing  strengthens  character  more  than  honest 
trade  work,  and  I  agree  entirely  with  Mr.  Hamilton,  who  said 
in  his  speech  at  Harrisburg  last  February : 

The  contribution  that  honest  toil  makes  to  the  child-character  is  just  as 
rich,  possibly,  as  that  of  any  other  specific  line  of  school  work.  Earnest, 
self-directed  effort  is  the  base  of  all  habit  and  the  very  cornerstone  of  char- 
acter. Nothing  so  crystallizes  the  crude  charcoal  of  childhood  into  the 
diamonds  of  humanity  as  systematic  self-directed  effort. 

What  we  have  to  beware  of  is  that  this  industrial  work,  this 
"honest  toil,"  does  not  degenerate  into  drudgery.  And  this 
danger  will  be  avoided  when  a  well-organized  continuation 
school  keeps  pace  with  the  period  of  apprenticeship,  giving  it 
meaning  and  thoroughness,  making  it  many-sided,  taking  hold 
of  and  ennobling  all  its  interests.  Even  the  hardest  work  ceases 
to  be  a  torment  when  we  perform  it  with  all  our  hearts.  The 
introduction  of  industrial  work  or  manual  training  into  the 
upper  classes  of  the  primary  school  is  without  doubt  a  most 
useful  undertaking  in  the  interests  of  industrial  education.  We 
have  long  adopted  this  plan  in  Munich,  although  we  have  not 
carried  it  so  far  as  the  ecoles  professionnelles  in  Belgium  and 
France.  Indeed,  from  a  social  and  economic  standpoint  it  is 
much  easier  than  the  establishment  of  well-organized  continua- 
tion schools.  For  the  elementary  classes  do  not  have  to  struggle 
against  the  egoism  of  employers.  But  this  cannot  take  the  place 
of  well-developed  continuation  schools.  For  the  aim  and  end  of 
all  this  training  cannot  be  merely  industrial  education.  Its 
aim  and  end  is  the  education  of  the  man,  whom  it  will  not 
permit  to  be  identified  with  and  lost  in  the  workman.  And 
the  modern  state  can  never  hope  to  become  a  state  of  culture 
and  justice  till  it  has  succeeded,  by  the  right  manner  of  instruc- 
tion, in  restoring  to  work,  robbed  of  its  divinity  by  the  advance 
of  industry,  its  educational  powers. 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  CONTINUATION  SCHOOL 
IN  MUNICH 

In  my  last  lecture  I  endeavored  to  show  the  principles  on 
which  the  continuation  school  is  organized  and  the  relation  it 
must  bear  to  the  whole  life  of  the  pupil.  Before  I  describe  the 
organization  of  the  continuation  school  in  Munich,  it  may  be 
well  to  draw  a  picture  of  the  characteristics  which  a  continuation 
school  ought  to  have,  if  it  is  to  be  a  true  place  of  education  for 
the  people,  and  perhaps  also,  in  order  to  bring  the  form  of  the 
school  into  stronger  relief,  at  the  same  time  to  state  what  it 
ought  not  to  be. 

The  first  fundamental  principle  of  a  rightly  organized  con- 
tinuation school  is  that  it  must  extend  to  the  eighteenth  year 
of  every  boy  or  girl  who  is  not  being  educated  in  a  higher  school. 
It  is  of  no  advantage  to  a  constitutional  state  to  make  its  oppor- 
tunities of  culture  accessible  only  to  a  small  percentage.  When 
all  citizens  of  the  state  have  the  right  to  participate  in  its  affairs 
and  to  exert  influence  on  its  executive  through  the  suffrage,  it 
is  the  business  of  the  state  to  provide  all  with  an  education  that 
will  enable  them  to  make  a  reasonable  use  of  this  right.  During 
several  decades  we  believed  in  Germany  that  it  was  sufficient 
to  give  opportunities  for  boys  and  girls  to  continue  their  edu- 
cation after  quitting  the  primary  school  and  to  leave  the  use 
of  such  opportunities  to  their  own  free  will.  The  United 
States,  France,  and  especially  England  are  still  of  this  opinion. 
England  points  not  without  justifiable  pride  to  the  very  large 
attendance  at  its  night  schools.  The  evening  courses  at  the 
excellent  School  of  Technology  in  Manchester  were  attended 
by  twenty-five  thousand  pupils,  while  Munich,  having  four- 
fifths  of  the  population  of  Manchester,  had  only  about  eighteen 

17 


1 8  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

thousand  pupils  in  its  compulsory  continuation  schools  in  the  same 
year.  But  it  is  not  enough  to  count  only  the  number  of  pupils. 
We  must  also  ask,  How  many  hours'  instruction  does  each 
receive?  And  we  then  find  that  in  Manchester  the  pupil  re- 
ceived sixty-three  hours  a  year,  while  in  Munich  he  received 
three  hundred  and  thirty  hours  in  the  year. 

In  Germany  everybody  is  now  convinced  that  the  voluntary 
continuation  school  no  longer  suffices  for  the  educational  needs 
of  modern  states.  As  long  as  the  continuation  school  remains 
optional,  thousands  of  employers  will  prevent  their  youthful 
workmen  from  making  use  of  its  opportunities,  except  at  the 
end  of  their  day's  work,  when  mind  and  body  are  fatigued.  And 
even  in  cases  in  which  some  reasonable  employers  would  be 
willing  to  grant  their  boys  time  for  study,  they  would  probably 
do  it  only  if  the  training  in  question  were  principally  in  the 
interest  of  their  own  trade.  The  number  of  employers  who 
see  farther  and  recognize  that  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance 
not  only  for  business  but  also  for  the  community  at  large  not 
to  let  the  man  disappear  in  the  workman,  but  to  take  his  moral 
and  civic  education  in  hand  betimes,  is  too  small  to  achieve 
any  appreciable  progress  in  the  universal  education  of  the 
people  by  means  of  purely  voluntary  continuation  schools.  We 
must  remember  that  a  voluntary  continuation  school  will  not 
reach  those  who  need  it  most,  that  is  to  say,  the  innumerable 
boys  and  girls  in  our  large  towns  who  have  a  family  only  in 
name  or  no  family  at  all.  No  one  will  voluntarily  seek  an  op- 
portunity of  culture  after  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day,  unless 
he  already  possesses  certain  moral  qualities  that  incite  him  to 
attend  to  his  own  education  at  the  cost  of  trouble  and  incon- 
venience to  himself.  These  are  the  reasons  that  have  convinced 
us  in  Germany  that  compulsory  attendance  at  the  continuation 
school  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  eighteen  is  absolutely 
indispensable. 

But  if  this  compulsory  continuation  school  is  to  be  in  reality 
a  home  of  education,  it  must  in  the  second  place  engage  the 
interest  of  its  pupils.  But  it  can  engage  their  interest  only  if 
it  interweaves  its  teaching  with  the  trade  of  the  pupil.  For 


THE    CONTINUATION   SCHOOL   IN   MUNICH  IQ 

the  most  capable  pupils  desire  to  get  on  in  their  trade  and  by 
help  of  their  trade.  Many  have  made  it  their  choice  from  in- 
clination, and  have  a  lively  interest  in  its  technicalities.  This 
is  a  perfectly  justified  interest.  If  the  school  appeals  to  this 
interest  it  may  be  sure  of  gaining  the  heart  of  its  pupil.  And  if 
it  has  gained  its  pupil's  heart  it  can  lead  him  whither  it  will,  on 
to  theoretical  as  well  as  practical  ground,  and  particularly  on  to 
the  ground  of  moral  and  civic  teaching. 

Now  if  the  school  is  to  be  brought  as  much  as  possible  into 
intimate  contact  with  the  life  of  the  pupil,  it  must,  in  the  third 
place,  possess  workshops  and  laboratories  for  practical  work  as 
the  center  of  its  entire  organization.  There  it  can  ennoble  and 
intensify  the  work  of  boys  and  girls,  and  put  processes  that 
too  frequently  approach  them  only  in  a  purely  mechanical  as- 
pect on  the  basis  of  practical  and  scientific  reflection.  The 
youthful  worker  of  present-day  economic  life  has  in  no  way 
remained  an  object  of  education  in  the  same  sense  as  was  the 
apprentice  of  four  or  five  hundred  years  ago,  in  the  times  of 
rigorous  guild  regulations.  He  has  become  more  and  more  an 
instrument  of  cheap  labor.  The  larger  the  business,  the  more 
one-sided  is  often  the  apprentice's  training,  and  the  smaller 
the  business,  the  more  insignificant  is  generally  the  work  in- 
trusted to  him.  If  then  the  pupil  is  to  learn  the  meaning  of  real 
joy  in  work  this  school  must  fill  up  the  gaps  left  in  the  boy's 
education  by  the  present  economic  conditions  of  life.  It  can 
do  this  only  if  it  takes  in  hand  the  pupil's  practical  work  and 
makes  this  the  center  of  its  entire  system  of  teaching. 

If  the  school  stopped  here,  however,  it  would  but  imperfectly 
fulfil  its  purpose.  The  end  of  all  education  is  not  the  techni- 
cally competent  workman,  but  the  citizen  of  the  state,  who  not 
only  seeks  to  advance  his  own  welfare  through  his  work,  but 
also  consciously  places  his  work  in  the  service  of  the  community. 
The  fourth  essential  of  the  continuation  school  is  therefore  the 
attitude  of  regarding  technical  education  only  as  means  for 
mental  and  moral  training.  I  have  already  pointed  out  in  gen- 
eral terms  how  the  organization  must  be  adapted  to  this  object, 
and  propose  to  show  it  more  clearly  now  by  the  example  of 


20  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

Munich.  Not  until  the  organization  has  entered  on  this  path 
will  the  continuation  school  prove  itself  valuable  enough  to 
justify  the  large  expenditure  which  it  requires. 

It  would  be  extremely  one-sided  to  establish  schools  of  this 
kind  for-  men  workers  alone.  The  more  the  population  of  a 
country  increases  and  the  harder  the  struggle  for  existence  con- 
sequently becomes,  the  more  is  the  wife  obliged  to  contribute 
to  the  support  of  the  family  and  the  more  pressing  is  therefore 
the  necessity  of  giving  girls  opportunities  of  training,  not  only 
in  the  hbusehold  knowledge  that  helps  to  preserve  a  family  from 
ruin,  but  also  in  the  different  branches  of  trade  by,  which  she 
may  later  earn  a  livelihood.  Indeed  in  greatly  overpopulated 
states  the  continuation  school  is  even  more  important  for  the 
girls  than  for  the  boys.  In  our  great  factory  centers,  where 
husband  and  wife  go  out  to  work,  family  life  and  family  edu- 
cation are  in  innumerable  cases  well-nigh  annihilated.  Thus 
a  new  source  of  danger  for  the  life  of  the  state  arises.  If  it 
were  possible  to  develop  a  strong  family  feeling  and  to  rein- 
state the  family  in  its  old  educational  functions  by  training 
women  to  their  duties  as  mothers  and  housewives  and  giving 
them  the  opportunity  of  performing  these  tasks  our  anxiety  for 
the  education  of  growing  lads  would  be  considerably  reduced. 
The  difficulty  of  organizing  continuation  schools  for  girls  lies 
in  the  fact  that  these  schools  have  to  fulfil  a  twofold  task.  In 
the  first  place  a  girl  must  be  trained  for  her  vocation  proper  as 
mother  and  housewife,  and  in  the  second  place,  marriage  being 
uncertain,  for  a  calling  by  which  she  can  support  herself.  It 
is  therefore  necessary  for  both  elementary  and  continuation 
schools  to  keep  these  two  objects  in  view.  As  long  as  the  time 
at  its  disposal  is  too  short,  it  will  have  to  pay  chief  attention 
to  the  training  of  the  housewife  and  mother  and  then  turn  to 
the  training  for  a  vocation. 

It  is  very  probable  that  most  towns  will  have  financial  diffi- 
culties in  equipping  really  good  continuation  schools  for  both 
boys  and  girls  at  the  same  time.  The  municipalities  will  be 
obliged,  as  has  been  the  case  in  Munich,  to  content  themselves 
at  first  with  establishing  the  compulsory  continuation  school 


THE   CONTINUATION    SCHOOL   IN    MUNICH  21 

for  one  sex.  The  better  the  school  is  organized,  the  more  surely 
in  the  course  of  time  will  public  opinion  demand  the  same 
schools  for  the  other  sex  and  find  ways  and  means  to  support 
them  from  the  public  purse. 

Before  I  proceed  to  give  you  a  picture  of  the  Munich  or- 
ganization, let  me  place  before  you  a  short  sketch  of  the  entire 
school  system  of  the  town.  The  primary  school  is  compulsory 
for  boys  from  six  to  fourteen,  for  girls  from  six  to  thirteen. 
The  number  of  primary-school  pupils  is  seventy  thousand  in  a 
population  of  five  hundred  and  eighty  thousand.  All  children 
from  the  day-laborer's  up  to  the  prime  minister's  attend  these 
schools.  No  fees  are  paid. 

Kindergartens  for  children  from  the  age  of  three  to  six  are 
attached  to  most  primary  schools.  Attendance  is  voluntary  and 
not  free  of  charge. 

Girls  and  boys  who  pass  up  to  higher  schools  to  prepare  for 
the  professions  of  scholars,  engineers,  clergymen,  higher  state 
officials,  etc.,  leave  the  primary  school  at  the  age  of  ten.  There 
are  thirteen  public  and  fourteen  private  schools  for  this  pur- 
pose (Gymnasia,  Realschulen,  Oberrealschulen,  and  higher  girls' 
schools).  Attendance  is  not  free  of  charge,  but  very  cheap — 
about  one  dollar  a  month. 

The  compulsory  primary  school  is  followed  by  the  com- 
pulsory continuation  school  for  all  boys  and  girls  who  do  not 
attend  a  higher  school.  Attendance  is  compulsory  for  boys 
during  the  whole  of  their  apprenticeship  but  not  beyond  their 
eighteenth  year;  it  is  compulsory  for  girls  for  three  years.  At- 
tendance is  free  of  charge.  The  compulsory  continuation  school 
for  boys  is  again  followed  by  an  optional  continuation  school 
for  persons  over  eighteen,  which  was  attended  last  year  by  two 
thousand  six  hundred  pupils,  and  represented  at  least  twelve 
hours'  weekly  instruction.  Attendance  is  not  free  of  charge, 
but  also  very  cheap — fifty  cents  to  a  dollar  a  month. 

The  compulsory  continuation  school  for  boys  has  eight  to 
ten  hours'  instruction  weekly.  The  compulsory  continuation 
school  for  girls  has  at  present  only  three  hours'  instruction 
weekly;  from  the  year  1912  it  will  have  six  hours.  But  side  by 


22  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

side  with  this  compulsory  continuation  school  are  a  voluntary 
continuation  school,  with  six  to  twelve  hours'  instruction 
weekly,  and  a  voluntary  eighth  class  in  the  primary  school  with 
thirty  hours  of  instruction  a  week. 

The  compulsory  continuation  schools  for  boys  contain  in 
round  numbers  nine  thousand  four  hundred  pupils;  the  com- 
pulsory continuation  schools  for  girls  contain  seven  thousand 
five  hundred  pupils,  the  voluntary  continuation  schools  for  girls, 
including  the  eighth  class,  three  thousand  seven  hundred  pupils. 
All  in  all,  therefore,  there  are  about  twenty  thousand  pupils 
under  eighteen  years  of  age  in  these  continuation  schools.  In 
addition  to  these  there  are  ten  thousand  pupils  in  the  higher  boys' 
and  girls'  schools  of  the  town  (seven  thousand  boys  and  three 
thousand  girls). 

Thus  about  one  hundred  thousand  children,  that  is,  18  per 
cent  of  the  entire  population  and  93  per  cent  of  all  the  boys  and 
girls  between  six  and  eighteen  in  Munich,  attend  the  public 
schools  of  the  town. 

The  nine  thousand  pupils  of  the  compulsory  continuation 
schools  for  boys  are  distributed  in  fifty- two  trade  schools  and 
twelve  general  schools.  The  trade  schools  are  attended  by  all 
boys  who  are  apprenticed  to  any  trade,  the  general  schools  by 
unskilled  workmen  (about  eleven  hundred),  day  laborers,  bar- 
row men,  errand  boys,  and  servants.  These  general  schools 
also  receive  the  apprentices  of  trades  that  are  too  small  to  have 
special  trade  schools  established  for  them. 

The  seven  thousand  five  hundred  girls  in  the  girls'  com- 
pulsory continuation  school  are  distributed  over  forty  schools 
in  the  town.  They  receive  without  exception  household  teach- 
ing. Twelve  hundred  of  the  three  thousand  seven  hundred 
pupils  of  the  voluntary  continuation  school  are  in  the  voluntary 
eighth  class,  thirteen  hundred  in  the  household  department  of 
the  continuation  school  for  girls,  nine  hundred  in  the  commer- 
cial, three  hundred  in  the  trade  department.  The  classes  of  the 
voluntary  continuation  school  for  girls  are  distributed  in  twenty- 
one  schools. 

A  trade  school  is  established  in  Munich  for  every  trade  that 


THE   CONTINUATION   SCHOOL   IN   MUNICH  23 

has  at  least  twenty-five  apprentices.  Trades  with  a  great  num- 
ber of  apprentices  (such  as  machine-builders,  mechanics,  lock- 
smiths, joiners,  bakers,  butchers,  publicans)  have  at  their  dis- 
posal several  trade  schools  in  different  parts  of  the  town,  in 
order  to  shorten  the  distance  to  school.  The  only  exception  is 
that  the  twelve  hundred  commercial  apprentices  are  housed  in 
a  single  building  in  the  center  of  the  town. 

The  apprentices'  trade  schools,  with  their  higher  divisions 
for  journeymen  and  masters,  that  is,  with  their  voluntary  con- 
tinuation schools,  are  distributed  in  seven  schoolhouses  through- 
out the  town.  One  of  these  schoolhouses  contains  only  the 
commercial  apprentices,  a  second  principally  the  different 
branches  of  painters,  a  third  the  various  building  and  arts 
trades,  a  fourth  the  printing  and  reproducing  trades,  fine  me- 
chanics and  machine  locksmiths,  a  fifth  the  different  kinds  of 
wood-workers.  The  butchers'  trade  school  is  combined  with 
the  town  slaughter-house.  The  gardeners'  trade  school  has 
its  own  grounds.  Six  of  the  fifty-two  trade  schools  are  still  in 
the  buildings  of  the  primary  schools. 

All  trade  schools  are  under  the  direct  supervision  of  nine 
head-masters  or  directors,  with  sub-directors  for  each  single 
school. 

To  most  trade  schools  is  attached  an  association  of  employ- 
ers, who  bear  the  expense  of  school  material,  take  part  in  the 
discussions  on  the  plan  of  instruction,  have  the  right  of  pro- 
posing technical  teachers,  assist  in  the  supervision  of  the  prac- 
tical subjects,  co-operate  in  the  examination  of  apprentices,  and 
help  to  spread  interest  in  the  school  and  to  further  its  prosperous 
development.  This  intimate  connection  of  an  employers'  asso- 
ciation with  the  aims  and  tasks  of  a  trade  continuation  school 
established  by  public  money  has  in  many  cases  proved  an  ex- 
ceedingly useful  arrangement.  The  interest  of  the  employers 
in  the  education  of  the  apprentices  is  considerably  increased. 
And  when  this  is  achieved,  the  association  naturally  does  not 
content  itself  with  furthering  the  education  of  the  apprentices 
in  the  school  alone,  but  seeks  to  raise  the  standard  of  their 


24  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

calling  in  their  own  workshops  as  well.  This  is  of  course  a 
process  that  takes  place  very  gradually. 

Each  continuation  school  also  possesses  its  own  school  board, 
consisting  of  a  head-master  of  the  trade  school,  a  member  of 
the  municipality,  and  three  employers  of  the  trade.  It  is  the 
business  of  this  board  to  manage  the  affairs  of  the  school  and 
especially  to  keep  watch  on  the  regularity  of  attendance. 

Every  apprentice  spends  one  whole  day  or  two  half -days  of 
his  working  week  in  a  trade  school.  As  a  rule  this  involves  a 
reduction  in  wages.  Some  employers'  associations,  however, 
pay  wages  on  both  school  and  work  days. 

In  the  fifty-two  trade  schools  there  are  about  one  hundred 
and  twenty  teachers  entirely  attached  to  the  school  and  about 
three  hundred  who  give  lessons  there  in  addition  to  other  work. 
The  teachers  are  recruited  from  all  kinds  of  professions  and 
vocations.  Academic  and  normal-school  teachers  co-operate 
with  master-workmen,  journeymen,  artisans,  and  agricultural- 
ists ;  and  they  exert  an  excellent  influence  upon  each  other.  The 
artisan,  the  master,  and  the  journeyman  learn  to  respect  the 
schoolmaster,  and  the  schoolmaster  learns  to  respect  the  work- 
man, who  is  engaged  with  him  on  the  same  educational  problem. 

The  yearly  expenditure  for  the  compulsory  apprentices' 
trade  schools  and  for  the  voluntary  journeymen's  trade  schools 
amounted  last  year,  aside  from  the  annual  building  expenses, 
in  round  numbers  to  900,000  marks.  The  individual  continua- 
tion-school pupil  therefore  costs  about  80  marks,  whereas  each 
primary-school  pupil  costs  93  marks,  and  each  pupil  in  the 
higher  schools  200  marks.  The  expenses  of  the  primary  school 
are  borne  principally  by  the  town,  the  expenses  of  the  higher 
schools  are  with  few  exceptions  borne  by  the  state,  and  the 
expenses  of  the  continuation  school  are  borne  by  state  and  town 
together. 

The  annual  net  expenditure  for  the  compulsory  and  volun- 
tary continuation  schools  for  girls  amounts  to  about  400,000 
marks,  and  is  borne  by  the  town  alone. 

So  much  for  the  external  organization.  When  we  turn  to 
the  internal  organization  of  the  compulsory  continuation  school, 


THE   CONTINUATION    SCHOOL   IN   MUNICH  25 

we  find,  as  already  pointed  out,  practical  instruction  in  work- 
shop, laboratory,  shop,  and  garden  in  the  center  of  every  ap- 
prentices' trade  school.  This  instruction  represents  two  to  three 
hours  a  week. 

Teaching  in  drawing  and  arithmetic  is  most  intimately  con- 
nected with  this  practical  instruction.  Nothing  is  drawn  that  has 
not  been  made  in  the  workshop.  And  every  process  in  work  or 
construction  is  followed  out  in  figures.  By  making  out  both 
preliminary  estimates  and  bills  the  pupil  learns  the  value  not 
only  of  material  and  work  but  also  of  the  time  that  has  been  spent 
upon  the  work.  It  is  particularly  useful  for  the  apprentice  to 
recognize  by  these  bills  how  much  the  time  he  has  spent  on  the 
work — and  this  of  course  is  very  great  with  apprentices — in- 
creases the  cost  of  production.  Special  care  is  taken  in  making 
out  bills  and  estimates  to  let  the  pupil  learn  to  calculate  not  only 
the  cost  of  materials  and  time  but  also  all  other  items  of  cost, 
arising  from  the  deterioration  of  machines  and  tools,  the  in- 
terest on  capital,  carriage,  and  various  other  sources  of  expense. 

Practical  instruction  is  also  intimately  connected  with  the 
study  of  materials,  tools,  and  machines.  The  pupil  makes  ac- 
quaintance with  these  almost  exclusively  through  his  own  practi- 
cal work.  He  is  especially  familiarized  with  the  mechanical 
laws  under  which  machines  and  tools  work. 

Moreover,  whenever  the  work  in  hand  demands  a  knowledge 
of  physics  and  chemistry  to  show  the  pupil  the  reasons  for  what 
he  does,  or  teach  him  how  to  make  new  experiments  with  sue-* 
cess,  he  receives  instruction  in  special  laboratories  in  the  con- 
ceptions and  laws  required  for  well-considered  work. 

The  technical  education  of  the  apprentice  is  never  planned 
with  a  view  to  letting  him  make  masterpieces.  On  the  con- 
trary, we  endeavor  to  let  him  find  pleasure  in  simple,  careful, 
thorough,  conscientious  work  in  genuine  materials,  and  to  en- 
courage him  to  new  attempts  through  the  feeling  of  security  in 
his  own  power. 

His  moral  insight  is  enlarged  by  German  lessons.  We  read 
good  authors  in  class  and  place  at  the  pupil's  disposal  a  selection 
of  good  books  from  the  school  library  for  reading  at  home. 


26  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

In  addition  to  this  the  pupils  have  one  lesson  weekly  in  re- 
ligion up  to  their  sixteenth  year. 

Civic  instruction  is  generally  planned  as  follows  in  the  dif- 
ferent trade  schools:  First,  the  historical  development  of  the 
trade  to  which  the  pupil  belongs  is  discussed.  He  is  shown  in 
the  struggles  of  his  fellow-workers  the  continually  growing  in- 
terdependence of  interests  among  all  citizens  of  a  community. 
Concrete  examples  of  devotion  to  a  common  cause  are  placed 
before  him.  Thus  by  degrees  he  recognizes  how  the  problems 
arose  which  occupy  town  and  nation  today,  and  learns  the  duties 
and  rights  of  the  individual  within  the  state. 

This  insight  is  strengthened  into  the  will  to  consider  others 
and  to  devote  himself  to  common  purposes  by  the  association 
of  pupils  in  working  groups,  especially  in  the  last  school  year. 

Hygienic  training  is  given  not  only  by  special  instruction  in 
hygiene,  but  also  by  gymnastics  and  games  on  Sunday  after- 
noons and  during  the  school  holidays.  An  association  of  young 
men  of  the  cultivated  classes,  especially  young  army  officers, 
places  well-trained  leaders  at  our  disposal  on  Sundays,  who  take 
hundreds  of  apprentices  for  walks  in  the  environs  of  the  town. 

The  association  of  apprentices  among  themselves  outside 
the  schools,  for  the  pursuit  of  common  interests,  is,  on  the 
other  hand,  but  little  developed.  This  is  a  kind  of  .thing  that 
cannot  be  done  by  command — it  must  grow  out  of  the  spirit 
of  the  school.  Not  only  is  the  organization  still  too  young 
for  this,  but  the  whole  conception  of  pupils'  associations  is 
still  too  young  in  Germany.  In  one  school  alone — a  higher 
mercantile  school  for  girls — has  an  institution  of  the  kind  been 
developed  with  eminent  success,  thanks  to  the  devotion  of  the 
head-master.  And  in  one  trade  school  for  boys  a  mutual- 
assistance  fund  managed  by  the  boys  themselves  works  very 
well.  But  these  examples  are  still  isolated  ones. 

The  organization  I  have  described  at  present  exists  in  this 
complete  form  only  in  Munich.  I  have  already  said  that  Wiirt- 
temberg  has  adopted  the  same  organization  for  the  whole  country, 
that  similar  institutions  are  to  be  found  in  Baden,  that  the  canton 


THE   CONTINUATION   SCHOOL   IN   MUNICH  27 

of  Zurich  in  Switzerland  has  quite  recently  promulgated  a  new 
Continuation  School  Law  which  in  many  respects  resembles  its 
Munich  predecessor,  and  that,  finally,  the  city  of  Vienna  has 
erected  at  a  cost  of  eight  million  crowns  a  central  building  for 
apprentices'  continuation  schools,  the  framework  of  which  is 
exactly  the  same  as  in  Munich.  Thus  it  is  seen  that  South 
Germany,  Austria,  and  German  Switzerland  have  started  on 
the  road  of  Munich's  continuation-school  organization.  Also  in 
North  Germany  the  greatest  energy  is  being  expended  on  the 
problem  of  compulsory  continuation  schools,  but  at  present 
without  any  attempt  to  base  the  organization  on  the  school 
workshop. 

The  reason  for  this  must  be  sought  not  only  in  the  fact 
that  pedagogical  opinion  in  North  Germany  is  still  very  strongly 
permeated  with  the  idea  of  so-called  general  culture,  but  also 
in  the  difference  between  the  South  German  and  the  North 
German  employer..  The  latter  is  mostly  an  ardent  opponent  of 
the  school  workshop.  And  another  reason  is  perhaps  the  diffi- 
culty with  which  organizers  and  schoolmen  can  make  up  their 
minds  to  accept  the  innovations  of  a  colleague.  It  is  a  funda- 
mental characteristic  of  human  nature  that  everyone  who  has 
a  question  to  solve  likes  to  have  contributed  his  own  share 
to  the  solution.  There  is  a  German  riddle  that  illustrates  what 
I  mean :  "What  is  the  difference  between  God  and  a  German 
professor?"  And  the  answer  is:  "God  knows  everything,  and 
the  German  professor  knows  everything  better."  This  "knowing 
better"  is  always  a  hindrance  to  the  quick  realization  of  a  good 
thing.  I  do  not  wish  to  throw  a  stone  at  anybody.  For  we 
can  all  make  the  same  observation  about  ourselves.  We  are 
all  inclined  to  know  things  better  than  our  colleagues.  Espe- 
cially when  we  have  worked  on  a  special  hobby,  consistently  and 
energetically,  for  many  years,  it  is  unspeakably  difficult  so  to 
enter  into  the  ideas  of  another  man,  who  does  not  agree  with 
us,  that  we  can  do  him  justice  on  all  sides.  Nevertheless  ex- 
perience will  show  in  the  case  in  question  that  the  purely  theoret- 
ical continuation  school  which  entirely  avoids  practical  teaching 
will  not  fulfil  its  purpose.  In  your  country  it  is  hardly  probable 


28  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

that  this  experience  will  be  necessary.  You  have  already  excel- 
lent school  workshops  in  schools  of  the  most  various  kinds,  the 
value  of  which  for  the  education  of  the  man  as  opposed  to  the 
workman  has  been  brilliantly  demonstrated  in  the  publications 
of  the  National  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Industrial  Educa- 
tion. The  essential  reason  why  the  continuation  school  should 
not  become  a  purely  theoretical  school  is  that  its  limitation 
to  theoretical  instruction  would  form  an  almost  insuperable 
barrier  to  transforming  our  schools  into  educational  institutions 
for  community  life.  The  transformation  of  schools  into  insti- 
tutions of  this  kind,  or,  as  I  express  it,  into  communities  of 
labor,  is  the  fundamental  problem  of  all  school  organization. 
Its  solution  is  the  task  of  the  present  century.  As  long  as  our 
schools  of  all  kinds,  not  the  continuation  schools  alone,  are  not 
organized  as  communities  of  labor,  they  will  not  prepare  their 
pupils  as  they  should  for  the  great  labor-community  that  sur- 
rounds us,  the  state.  I  can  give  no  better  illustration  of  what} 
I  mean  than  in  a  quotation  ifrom  your  excellent  countryman, 
Professor  John  Dewey,  in  his  Moral  Principles  of  Education: 

I  am  told  that  there  is  a  swimming-school  in  a  certain  city  where 
youth  are  taught  to  swim  without  going  into  the  water,  being  repeatedly 
drilled  in  the  various  movements  which  are  necessary  for  swimming.  When 
one  of  the  young  men  so  trained  was  asked  what  he  did  when  he  got  into 
the  water,  he  laconically  replied :  "Sunk."  The  story  happens  to  be  true ; 
were  it  not,  it  would  seem  to  be  a  fable  made  expressly  for  the  purpose  of 
typifying  the  ethical  relationship  of  school  to  society.  The  school  cannot  be 
a  preparation  for  social  life,  excepting  as  it  reproduces,  within  itself,  typi- 
cal conditions  of  social  life. 

All  our  present  schools  are  such  swimming-schools  on  dry 
land,  as  far  as  social  education  is  concerned.  We  may  give  our 
pupils  a  vast  amount  of  instruction  as  to  their  relation  to  state 
and  society.  But  we  do  not  accustom  them  to  regard  their 
work  from  this  point  of  view,  and  we  give  them  no  opportunity 
of  making  practical  use  of  their  knowledge  in  the  service  of 
their  fellow-pupils.  Our  schools  are  therefore  no  schools  for 
social  service.  But  nothing  could  be  better  adapted  for  this 
purpose  than  the  continuation  schools  I  have  described,  in  as 
far  as  they  are  intimately  combined  with  workshops  and  labora- 


THE   CONTINUATION   SCHOOL   IN   MUNICH  29 

tories.  For  there  is  no  place  more  suitable  for  uniting  pupils 
for  community  of  labor  than  workshops,  laboratories,  and  ex- 
perimental gardens. 

The  only  path  to  real  state-community  is  to  accustom  the 
children  from  their  earliest  years  to  do  their  work  not  only  for 
their  own  personal  advantage  but  also  for  the  advantage  of  their 
youthful  companions.  Only  thus  can  we  hope  to  develop  the 
two  great  fundamental  virtues  of  devotion  to  aims  outside  our- 
selves and  of  consideration  for  the  interests  of  others.  And  only 
thus  will  it  in  all  probability  be  possible  to  preserve  our  great 
modern  constitutional  states  from  the  dangers  that  threaten 
them  through  their  own  industrial,  economic,  social,  and  politi- 
cal development. 


THE  TECHNICAL  DAY  TRADE  SCHOOLS  IN  GERMANY 

The  development  of  German  industry  and  of  German  com- 
merce since  the  foundation  of  the  German  Empire  is  one  of 
the  phenomena  which  both  we  at  home  and  our  neighbors 
around  us  regard  with  astonishment,  and  which  force  us  in- 
voluntarily to  ask  what  were  the  intrinsic  causes  that  brought 
this  development  to  pass.  Hand  in  hand  with  it  we  see  also  the 
advance  of  the  entire  system  of  technical  schools.  All  German 
states  are  paying  increasing  attention  to  these  technical-school 
systems.  The  sums  paid  from  the  public  purse  for  technical 
instruction  have  reached  a  height  unknown  before.  In 
Prussia,  the  largest  state  in  Germany,  the  state  expenditure  for 
continuation  and  trade  schools  amounted  in  the  year  1886  to 
570,000  marks;  this  expenditure  rose  in  the  year  1893  to  2,300,- 
ooo  marks,  in  the  year  1903  to  6,300,000  marks,  and  attained 
in  the  year  1908  the  height  of  12,000,000  marks,  or,  in  round 
numbers,  three  million  dollars.  The  expenditure  for  technical 
schools  has  risen  in  a  similar  manner  in  Austria,  where  it 
amounted,  with  the  exclusion  of  Hungary,  in  the  year  1896 
to  5,200,000  crowns,  in  the  year  1906  to  10,300,000  crowns,  and 
in  the  year  1908  to  14,500,000  crowns. 

It  is  natural  to  presume  that  these  rapidly  rising  curves  of 
industrial  development  and  technical  training  both  at  home  and 
abroad  stand  in  intimate  connection  with  one  another.  We  may 
be  inclined  to  give  technical  training  credit  for  a  considerable 
portion  of  this  industrial  development;  for  it  might  be  reasoned 
that  technical  training  must  have  preceded  the  visible  results 
of  this  training.  But  it  is  equally  possible  that  industrial  devel- 
opment preceded  the  development  of  technical  training,  and 
that  thus  the  requirements  of  industry  were  the  direct  or  indirect 
causes  for  the  establishment  of  new  technical  schools.  And  it  is 

30 


TECHNICAL  DAY   TRADE   SCHOOLS  IN   GERMANY  31 

also  quite  possible  that  though  our  technical  and  commercial 
schools  have  not  failed  to  influence  the  development  of  German 
industry  and  trade  they  have  by  no  means  been  the  determining 
factors  in  it. 

It  is  not  my  object  at  present  to  investigate  these  questions. 
Some  of  the  answers  will  present  themselves  in  the  course  of 
our  inquiry  into  the  development  of  German  technical  schools, 
their  number,  scope,  and  ideals. 

In  spite  of  the  great  expansion  of  the  technical-school  system 
in  Germany,  it  is  not  difficult  to  obtain  insight  into  its  essential 
features,  owing  to  the  German  tendency  to  unification,  and  es- 
pecially to  the  fact  that  the  schools  have  arisen  partly  or  entirely 
through  state  initiative.  It  will  be  advisable  to  distinguish  three 
groups  of  schools,  according  to  the  grade  of  training  to  which 
they  aspire.  German  industry  and  trade  require,  precisely  like 
the  German  army,  a  number  of  intellectually  highly-trained 
officers,  a  number  of  well-trained  subalterns,  and  an  army  of 
efficient  soldiers. 

The  group  of  technical  officers  is  almost  exclusively  re- 
cruited from  the  German  technical  colleges.  These  institutions 
are  open  only  to  students  who  have  passed  through  the  nine 
classes  of  the  secondary  schools.  They  educate  the  technical 
leaders  of  industry  and  also  the  state  and  municipal  officials  who 
are  intrusted  with  the  execution  of  technical  problems.  They 
receive  their  pupils  after  a  school  course  of  twelve  or  thirteen 
years,  including  the  primary  and  secondary  school,  running  from 
the  pupil's  sixth  to  his  nineteenth  year.  Frequently  a  year  of 
practical  work  is  thrown  in  between  the  secondary  school  and 
the  technical  college.  These  technical  colleges  supply  us  for 
the  most  part  with  the  higher  technical  heads  of  factories,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  strike  out  new  paths  and  discover  new  tasks  and 
methods. 

Two  different  kinds  of  schools  exist  for  the  training  of 
subaltern  officers:  the  middle  and  the  lower  technical  training 
schools.  The  technical  middle  school  expects  its  pupils,  as  n 
rule,  to  possess  the  knowledge  and  dexterity  that  are  acquired 
by  a  six-year  course  at  a  higher  secondary  school.  This  six- 


32  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

year  course  is  a  continuation  of  the  first  four  years  in  the 
primary  school.  Its  concluding  examination  gives  throughout 
Germany  the  right  to  serve  one  year  in  the  army  instead  of 
three.  Two  years'  practice  in  the  workshop  is  generally  re- 
quired before  admittance  to  these  technical  middle  schools.  It 
is  the  purpose  of  these  schools  to  provide  industry  with  skilled 
men,  who  can  serve  immediately  under  the  technical  leaders  as 
competent  helpers  either  in  the  office  or  in  the  works.  They 
also  train  the  subaltern  technical  officials  for  the  municipal  and 
civil  service.  The  time  allotted  them  for  this  task  is  from  two 
to  two  and  a  half  years.  The  pupil  is  therefore  about  twenty 
years  of  age  when  he  leaves  school.  (Compare  also  in  Abhand- 
lungen  und  Berichte  iiber  technisches  Schnlwesen  the  report  of 
Director  Rommberg  of  Coin,  p.  83.)  In  place  of  the  qualifica- 
tion for  the  one-year  military  service  that  is  gained  by  the  con- 
cluding examination  of  a  school  with  six  classes,  the  pupil  can 
undergo  an  entrance  examination  for  the  technical  middle  trade 
school. 

In  addition  to  these  schools  there  exist  a  great  number  of 
technical  lower  trade  schools  for  the  training  of  foremen,  en- 
gine-fitters, masters,  or  other  lower  officials  for  the  constructive 
and  business  departments  of  works  and  factories.  The  condi- 
tions of  admittance  are  graduation  from  the  primary  school 
(with  eight  classes)  followed  by  at  least  four  years'  practical 
work.  In  other  words,  only  thoroughly  trained  workmen  are 
received  in  these  schools.  The  period  of  instruction  varies  from 
one  to  two  years.  Foremen  proper,  as  required  in  industries, 
that  is  to  say,  workmen  placed  at  the  head  of  a  group  of  other 
workmen  in  factories,  are  as  a  rule  not  trained  in  either  of  these 
trade  schools.  These  men  must  be  possessed  not  only  of  suffi- 
cient technical  experience  but  also  of  special  qualities  of  char- 
acter, which  are  inborn  and  cannot  be  acquired  in  a  two  years' 
school  curriculum.  In  the  opinion  of  most  German  manufac- 
turers it  is  best  to  take  these  foremen  from  the  ranks  of  the 
most  capable  workmen.  What  they  lack  in  technical  training 
is  supplied  by  the  third  group  of  schools. 

This  third  group  of  schools  might  be  designated  as  techrtical 


TECHNICAL  DAY   TRADE   SCHOOLS   IN   GERMANY  33 

workmen's  schools.  They  are  spread  all  over  Germany,  in  the 
shape  of  continuation  schools,  factory  schools,  apprentices' 
schools,  Sunday  and  evening  schools.  Their  essential  charac- 
teristic is  that  school  attendance  generally  runs  parallel  with  the 
training  in  practical  work.  In  all  large  and  most  small  towns! 
of  Germany,  apprentices  and  other  youthful  workers  are  under 
the  obligation  of  attending  a  continuation  school  for  from  six 
to  nine  hours  weekly  during  the  working  days.  This  continua- 
tion school  must  as  far  as  possible  take  the  practical  work  of 
the  apprentice  as  the  basis  of  its  teaching.  In  some  few  cases 
factories  have  established  schools  as  part  of  their  organization, 
in  which  every  apprentice  without  exception  receives  higher  in- 
struction for  from  two  to  four  hours  daily.  In  other  places, 
again,  special  apprentices'  schools  have  been  established  for 
locksmiths,  machine-builders,  joiners,  weavers,  plumbers,  etc., 
which  take  the  place  of  the  ordinary  apprenticeship.  Moreover 
in  all  German  towns  evening  and  Sunday  trade  schools  exist 
for  workmen,  similar  to  those  common  in  England  and  America. 
I  class  all  these  schools  together  under  the  name  of  technical 
workmen's  schools. 

In  many  cases  these  technical  workmen's  schools  are  affili- 
ated with  the  technical  middle  schools.  They  make  use  of  the 
same  workshops  and  classrooms  and  have  the  same  teachers. 
The  more  gifted  pupils  can  go  up  from  the  workmen's  schools 
to  the  middle  and  even  to  the  higher  technical  schools,  provided, 
in  the  latter  case,  that  they  are  able  to  pass  the  entrance  examina- 
tion. They  have  a  considerable  advantage  over  many  pupils  of 
these  higher  schools  in  their  thorough  practical  training.  This 
is  a  point  on  which  of  late  years  special  stress  has  been  laid  in 
admittance  to  the  lower  and  middle  trade  schools.  Only  as  an 
exception  and  under  quite  peculiar  circumstances  is  it  considered 
advisable,  in  the  interest  of  industry,  to  admit  young  men  to 
the  lower  trade  schools  who  have  been  trained,  not  in  the  work- 
shop, but  in  the  office.  The  possibility  of  thus  moving  up  from 
one  school  to  another  not  only  provides  industry  with  capable 
workmen  but  also  builds  a  ladder  by  which  men  from  the  middle 
and  poorer  classes  may  mount  up  to  better-paid  posts.  The 


34  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

technical  middle  schools  thus  also  supply  a  social  want.  On  the 
other  hand  it  is,  as  a  rule,  impossible  in  Germany  for  a  pupif 
who  has  passed  through  the  technical  middle  school  to  enter  the 
technical  colleges  as  a  matriculated  student,  and  thus  to  gain, 
the  qualification  for  a  leading  officer  of  industry.  The  only 
technical  middle  school  that  accords  its  pupils  the  right  of  ma- 
triculation as  students  in  the  technical  courses  of  the  university! 
is  the  Trade  Academy  of  Chemnitz  in  Saxony.  There  is  no 
other  German  school  of  the  same  kind.  Industry,  however,  pays 
little  attention  to  this  system  of  qualification,  and  although  the 
pupils  of  the  technical  middle  schools  rarely  become  students 
in  the  technical  courses  of  the  university,  we  nevertheless  not 
infrequently  see  them  in  higher  industrial  posts.  Englishmen 
and  Americans  will  find  it  difficult  to  understand  such  rigoroute 
distinctions,  for  they  are  more  accustomed  than  we  in  Germany 
to  inquire  not  what  school  a  man  has  attended  but  what  he  has 
learned  and  what  he  can  do.  Yet  the  German  system  is  not 
altogether  without  justification.  Examinations  rarely  give  a 
true  picture  of  a  man.  We  rarely  succeed  in  so  ordering  them 
that  memory  is  not  placed  at  an  advantage  over  real  capacity. 
But  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  a  man's  best  qualities  generally  re- 
main hidden  from  the  examiner,  our  technical  colleges  in  Ger- 
many, which  have  a  very  high  standard  for  the  training  of 
engineers,  analytical  chemists,  and  architects,  must  demand  a 
fairly  homogeneous  and  intellectual  preparatory  training  if 
their  scientific  training  is  to  proceed  on  the  same  lines  as  hereto- 
fore. This  homogeneous  and  intellectual  training  is  as  a  rule 
to  be  had  only  in  the  German  nine-class  middle  schools  which 
begin  after  the  first  four  classes  of  the  primary  schools.  It 
would  be  of  the  greatest  danger  to  Germany's  industries  if  the 
scientific  standard  of  her  universities  were  to  be  lowered. 

The  technical  middle  schools,  or,  as  I  have  called  them  in 
the  title,  the  technical  day  trade  schools,  do  not  exist  for  all 
trades  and  industries  in  Germany.  The  industries  in  the  service 
of  which  such  schools  have  already  been  established  are  the 
various  kinds  of  metal  industry,  textile  industry,  wood  industry, 
shipbuilding,  smelting  works,  and  foundries.  Another  group 


TECHNICAL  DAY   TRADE   SCHOOLS  IN   GERMANY  35 

of  these  day  trade  schools  belongs  to  the  building  trades,  both 
above  ground  and  under  ground,  carpentry,  masonry,  drainage, 
concrete  and  iron  works,  and  the  different  kinds  of  art  trades, 
printing,  lithography,  and  chemical  engraving.  A  third  group 
deals  with  commercial  subjects.  In  addition  to  these  we  have 
a  number  of  lower  technical  schools  adapted  for  home  industries, 
for  instance,  schools  of  weaving,  carving,  basketmaking,  lace- 
making,  etc.  Finally,  household  schools  and  schools  for  needle- 
work and  dressmaking  must  not  be  forgotten.  These  schools 
for  home  industries  are  of  the  greatest  importance  in  an  over- 
populated  country  like  Germany,  or  a  country  poor  in  agriculture 
like  the  Alpine  districts  of  Austria,  and  they  are  accordingly 
beginning  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  state  in  a  very  high 
degree.  Particularly  in  Austria  the  organizers  of  home  indus- 
tries have  in  some  places  succeeded  by  good  schools  in  so  raising 
the  standard  of  production  as  to  lead  to  a  not  inconsiderable 
export  and  to  increase  the  prosperity  of  districts  possessing  no 
advantages  of  the  soil,  in  a  manner  undreamed  of  before.  The 
establishment  of  day  trade  schools  has  sometimes  been  the 
cause  of  more  economic  and  social  profit  in  these  cases  than  in 
the  large  industries.  Our  magnificently  developed  chemical  in- 
dustry as  well  as  our  food  industries  are  at  present  almost  en- 
tirely without  technical  middle  schools.  Neither  are  there  any 
public  day  trade  schools  for  the  clothing  branches  of  industry. 
But  the  chemical  industry  is  admirably  provided  with  higher 
officials  by  our  scientific  schools,  and  numerous  private  schools 
(millers'  schools,  brewers'  schools,  tailors'  academies,  and 
women's  schools)  provide  instruction  in  the  clothing  and  some 
food  industries. 

In  Germany,  with  an  area  of  540,000  square  kilometers,  that 
is,  about  one-third  of  the  seventeen  northern  states,  the  number 
of  technical  day  trade  schools  supported  by  states,  provinces,  or 
parishes,  and  therefore  public  schools,  amounts  in  round  numbers 
to  five  hundred.  There  are  about  the  same  number  of  agricul- 
tural schools.  Among  the  industrial  and  trade  schools  are  nine 
technical  universities,  three  mining  academies,  and  five  com- 
mercial universities;  twenty  higher  and  eighteen  lower  technical 


36  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

middle  schools  for  the  various  metal  industries,  nearly  forty 
middle  schools  for  the  weaving  industry,  nearly  fifty  for  the 
building  trades,  about  twenty  for  the  wood  trade,  twenty-fivie 
so-called  Kunstgeiverbeschulen,  and  thirty  more  for  special 
branches  of  art  trades.  Still  greater  is  the  number  of  higher 
and  lower  technical  middle  schools  in  Austria,  which  has  been 
systematically  spreading  a  net  of  these  schools  over  all  its  states 
since  the  year  1873.  It  would  be  purposeless  to  give  the  numbers, 
as  the  Austrian  system  does  not  correspond  with  the  German. 
We  must  be  careful  not  to  work  with  figures  alone,  in  describing 
technical  schools.  People  are  only  too  prone  to  lose  their  heads 
over  figures.  But  the  number  of  schools  is  not  the  principal 
thing.  So  long  as  a  country  has  pretty  well  what  it  needs,  the 
inner  organization  of  its  schools  and  their  relation  to  the  re- 
quirements of  its  industries  are  of  infinitely  more  importance. 

In  order  to  give  a  picture  of  this  inner  organization  and  its 
relation  to  industry  let  me  consider  some  of  the  principal  groups, 
the  schools  for  the  metal  industry,  the  schools  for  the  weaving" 
industry,  and  the  schools  for  the  building  trades. 

Among  the  schools  for  the  metal  industry  the  most  numerous 
are  the  royal  schools  for  machinery  and  technical  electricity. 
They  are  mostly  higher  technical  middle  schools,  combined  in 
some  cases  with  lower  technical  middle  schools.  In  Prussia 
there  are  fifteen  of  these :  Aachen,  Altona,  Breslau,  Coin,  Dort- 
mund, Duisburg,  Elberfeld,  Essen,  Gleiwitz,  Gorlitz,  Hagen, 
Kiel,  Magdeburg,  Posen,  Stettin ;  in  Bavaria  there  are  two  higher 
and  three  lower  schools.  Those  Prussian  towns  in  which  cutlery 
and  hardware  are  developed  have  in  addition  special  trade 
schools — royal  trade  schools  for  hardware  in  iron  and  steel : 
for  instance,  Remscheid,  Schmalkalden,  Siegen,  and  Solingen, 
which  export  their  wares  over  the  whole  world.  All  these 
schools,  and  especially  the  schools  for  machinery,  have  developed 
from  the  most  modest  beginnings.  They  were  originally  in 
Prussia,  in  the  first  half  of  the  last  century,  so-called  provincial 
trade  schools.  They  had  to  teach  simply  artisans  and  foremen, 
and  took  their  pupils  at  the  age  of  fourteen  from  the  elementary 
school.  In  the  year  1870  there  were  about  thirty  such  schools. 


TECHNICAL  DAY   TRADE   SCHOOLS  IN   GERMANY  37 

At  this  date  they  were  reorganized.  Admittance  was  granted 
only  to  pupils  who  had  passed  through  the  five  lower  classes  of 
our  general  middle  schools.  This  means  going  far  beyond  the 
mental  horizon  of  the  elementary-school  pupil.  These  schools 
underwent  a  second  transformation  in  the  year  1878.  Most  of 
them  were  then  changed  into  middle  schools  with  nine  classes, 
for  purposes  of  general  education,  the  so-called  Oberrealschulen 
of  today.  Only  five  of  the  old  schools  retained  the  organization 
of  a  so-called  technical  middle  school  (Gleiwitz,  Breslau,  Hagen, 
Barmen,  Aachen).  The  third  transformation  took  place  in  the 
year  1880.  In  this  year  a  higher  technical  middle  school  for 
machinery,  of  the  kind  already  described,  was  established  in  the 
town  of  Coin.  A  lower  technical  middle  school,  a  so-called  fore- 
men's school,  was  attached  to  it.  A  few  years  later  a  similar 
school  was  established  in  Dortmund,  and  ever  since  this  system 
has  been  adhered  to.  The  development  of  schools  in  Bavaria 
has  proceeded  on  the  same  lines  as  in  Prussia,  since  the  last 
decade  of  the  last  century. 

The  development  of  the  lower  schools  for  machinery  in 
Prussia  has  been  exceedingly  satisfactory,  and  the  pupils  turned 
out  by  them  have  been  able  to  meet  all  the  requirements  of  in- 
dustry. They  have  never  trained  foremen.  They  give  men  from 
the  primary  school  with  long  practical  experience  a  technical 
training  suitable  to  the  preparation  they  have  received,  and  leave 
the  manner  of  their  subsequent  occupation  to  industry.  The 
teaching  lays  special  stress  on  the  training  of  the  understanding 
for  the  principles  of  mechanics  and  the  laws  of  solid  bodies.  It 
comprises  the  elements  of  mathematics  (addition,  subtraction, 
multiplication,  and  division,  powers,  square  and  cubic  roots, 
equations  of  first  and  second  degree,  geometry,  trigonometry, 
and  the  calculation  of  surfaces  and  contents  of  simple  solids)  ; 
mechanics  (the  laws  of  the  elementary  statics  and  dynamics  of 
solid  and  fluid  bodies,  the  laws  of  solid  bodies)  ;  physics  (heat, 
gases,  fundamental  laws  of  optics)  ;  chemistry  (the  elements  and 
the  chemical  compounds  that  are  important  in  machinery,  metals 
and  metaloids)  ;  technical  drawing  (drawing  in  projection,  geo- 
metrical and  freehand  drawing,  and  especially  freehand  sketch- 


38  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

ing);  mechanical  technology  (founding,  forming,  forging, 
rolling,  etc. )  ;  the  most  important  tools  and  machines  for  metal 
and  wood,  the  most  important  parts  of  machines,  the  elements  of 
machine-building,  the  principles  of  technical  electricity,  simple 
building-constructions,  sometimes  practical  exercises  in  physical 
and  electrotechnical  laboratories,  for  taking  measurements  with 
the  simplest  instruments.  To  this  must  be  added  instruction  in 
German,  arithmetic,  the  writing  of  cost-estimates,  and  the  in- 
spection of  factories.  All  these  subjects  are  spread  over  four 
half-yearly  terms.  The  certificate  awarded  at  the  end  of  the 
course  gives  the  right  to  the  title  of  master  and  to  the  engage- 
ment of  apprentices.  Therefore  we  call  these  schools  "privi- 
leged schools." 

It  is  not  devoid  of  interest  to  note  the  answers  given  by  lead- 
ers in  industry  to  inquiries  lately  made  by  the  "German  Com- 
mittee for  Technical  Schools"  with  a  view  to  more  thorough 
organization.  They  point  out  that  it  matters  little  how  far  the 
pupil  advances  in  the  different  subjects  of  instruction,  but  it 
matters  a  great  deal  whether  he  is  thoroughly  grounded  in 
them;  that  it  is  not  a  question  of  increasing  theoretical  knowl- 
edge but  of  enlarging  practical  experience;  that  these  lower 
technical  schools  train  too  many  office  men  and  too  few  foremen, 
fitters,  and  masters ;  that  their  chief  aim  should  be  to  develop 
readiness  of  apprehension,  the  ability  to  draw,  business  capacity, 
and  interest  in  natural  science ;  that  men  who  have  passed  through 
the  state  schools  have  on  an  average  a  better  general  and  techni- 
cal education  than  the  pupils  of  private  schools,  and  that  it  would 
therefore  be  in  the  interest  of  industry  if  all  technical  schools 
in  Germany  were  exclusively  in  the  hands  of  the  state.  In  many 
cases  the  answers  assert  that  even  at  admittance  the  very  greatest 
attention  should  be  paid  to  the  practical  experience  possessed 
by  the  candidate.  Four  .years  are  not  considered  sufficient. 
They  demand  a  four-year  apprenticeship  and  after  this  four 
years'  work  as  journeymen.  And  they  urge  the  necessity  of 
advising  the  pupils  on  leaving  school  not  to  crowd  into  the 
offices,  but  to  seek  positions  in  the  workshops,  which  stand  higher 
in  repute  and  are  better  paid  than  the  former. 


TECHNICAL  DAY   TRADE   SCHOOLS  IN   GERMANY  39 

The  higher  schools  for  machinery  go  considerably  farther 
than  these  just  described.  They  presuppose  a  fairly  good  general 
education,  such  as  is  gained  in  a  six-class  middle  school  in  Ger- 
many, and  generally  demand  in  addition  two  years'  practical 
work.  On  this  they  base  a  curriculum  of  two  and  a  half  years' 
instruction.  The  subjects  taught  are  in  the  main  the  same  as 
those  of  the  lower  machinery  schools,  but  they  are  treated  more 
scientifically  and  give  the  pupils  the  knowledge  requisite  for 
simple  construction  under  supervision  or  for  reproduction.  In 
mathematics  the  pupils  go  as  far  as  differential  and  integral 
calculus ;  in  mechanics,  to  which  the  greatest  attention  is  paid, 
they  study  the  elements  of  heat  in  physics,  machine-building, 
and  technical  electricity,  and  they  receive  particularly  careful 
instruction,  both  theoretical  and  practical,  in  laboratories  espe- 
cially fitted  up  for  these  three  subjects.  All  proprietors  of 
works  and  factories  lay  stress  on  the  importance  of  laboratories, 
and  the  Memorial  on  the  Technical  Schools  of  Germany  points 
out  that  many  of  them  mention  the  necessity  of  technical  ex- 
periments and  continued  observations  that  might  well  be  placed 
in  the  hands  of  men  trained  in  technical  middle  schools.  Natu- 
rally great  importance  is  attached  to  training  in  drawing,  not 
only  geometrical  drawing  but  freehand  sketching,  and  on  the 
reproduction  of  machines  and  parts  of  machines  from  memory. 
Many  regard  education  in  the  faculty  of  space-conception  as 
absolutely  necessary  in  these  schools.  In  mechanical  technology 
the  pupil  is  introduced  to  tools  and  machines,  to  smelting,  found- 
ing, forging  and  rolling  processes,  and  to  the  study  of  raw  ma- 
terials; in  building  construction,  to  the  combinations  of  stone, 
wood,  and  iron,  to  the  construction  of  vaults,  roofs,  and  stair- 
cases, and  to  the  elements  of  graphic  statics.  To  this  is  added 
instruction  in  business  matters,  book-keeping,  bills  of  exchange, 
specifications,  and  estimates.  The  time  allotted  for  everything 
is  on  an  average  forty  to  forty-two  hours  a  week,  during  a 
course  of  two  or  two  and  a  half  years. 

The  pupils  trained  in  these  schools  find  employment  in  Ger- 
many not  only  in  industry  but  also  in  the  service  of  the  state. 
The  latter  is  particularly  the  case  when  they  can  show  good 


40  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

practical  ability.  But  their  number  is  not  great.  In  Prussia 
in  the  year  1904  the  higher  schools  for  machinery  were  training 
nine  hundred  and  forty  pupils.  If  we  apportion  this  number 
among  the  half-yearly  terms,  we  get  in  round  numbers  one  hun- 
dred and  ninety  pupils  per  term ;  that  is  to  say,  the  higher  schools 
for  machinery  throughout  all  Prussia  turned  out  one  hundred 
and  ninety  pupils  in  1904.  If  we  consider  that  probably  half 
of  these  enter  state  service  not  many  remain  for  private  posts. 
The  technical  middle  schools  for  the  metal  industry  are  for  the 
most  part  distinctly  divided  into  higher  and  lower  schools.  This 
is  not  yet  the  case  in  the  building  trades.  But  the  necessity  for  the 
division  is  making  itself  more  and  more  felt.  We  are  endeavor- 
ing to  place  working  builders,  that  is,  master  masons,  master 
stone-cutters,  master  carpenters,  and  foremen,  in  schools  of 
their  own,  with  a  lower  standard,  and  to  train  technical  builders, 
both  for  private  and  state  posts,  exclusively  in  the  higher  middle 
schools,  the  so-called  building  trade  schools.  These  schools  were 
originally  founded  for  the  theoretical  training  of  ordinary 
builders.  The  first  school  of  the  kind  was  established  as  a  pri- 
vate undertaking  in  the  year  1820  in  Munich  by  Mitterer  and 
Schopf,  and  raised  to  a  public  institution  in  1823.  The  second 
school  was  founded  in  1831  in  Minden,  Prussia.  This  was 
also  the  work  of  a  private  man,  the  district  building-inspector 
Haarmann.  In  both  cases  the  founders  were  inspired  by  their 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  theoretical  knowledge  and  the 
ability  in  drawing  of  the  working  builders  were  entirely  insuf- 
ficient. Other  building  schools  followed  later,  partly  established 
by  the  state,  partly  by  private  business  men,  but  in  the  latter 
case  first  subsidized  by  public  money  and  eventually  passing 
into  the  hands  of  state  or  commune  as  public  schools.  But  they 
were  all  founded  as  lower  middle  schools.  Not  till  later,  after 
state  and  commune  had  begun  to  require  a  certain  class  of  tech- 
nical workmen,  and  after  the  public  for  its  own  security  had 
begun  to  take  an  interest  in  the  training  of  private  builders,  was 
the  standard  of  these  schools  raised.  To  these  external  causes 
we  must  add  an  internal  cause,  which  has  made  itself  apparent 
in  all  technical  schools  in  the  course  of  their  historic  develop- 


TECHNICAL  DAY   TRADE   SCHOOLS  IN   GERMANY  41 

ment.  Every  school  has  in  itself  a  motive  for  progressive  ex- 
pansion. This  process  of  transformation  is  seen  not  only  in 
Germany,  but  in  all  countries.  It  may  even  be  a  danger  for 
technical  schools,  in  spite  of  its  intrinsic  justification.  The 
teacher  is  constantly  seeking  to  make  his  instruction  wider  and 
more  thorough,  and  this  pushes  the  pupil,  at  first  unintentionally, 
beyond  the  limits  of  artisanship.  But  as  it  is  impossible  for  a 
trade  to  flourish  which  is  being  automatically  drained  of  its 
most  intelligent  members,  it  must  be  a  fundamental  principle, 
in  the  organization  of  all  technical  schools,  to  preserve  the  pupils' 
joy  and  interest  in  personal,  manual  work. 

In  Germany  there  are  at  present  forty-five  higher  technical 
middle  schools  for  builders.  They  are  trade  schools,  and  train 
their  pupils  in  five  half-yearly  terms  to  become  either  independent 
masters  or  assistant  workmen  for  office  or  building  (drawers 
and  foremen),  or  technical  workmen  for  the  state,  the  army, 
the  railway,  or  the  municipality.  The  conditions  of  admittance 
are :  an  age  of  sixteen,  an  entrance  examination,  or  the  certifi-t 
cate  for  the  voluntary,  one-year  military  service,  and,  as  in  the 
machinery  schools,  practical  work  of  at  least  twelve  months' 
duration.  Exceptions  are  sometimes  made  to  the  last  condition. 
In  South  Germany  the  four  half-yearly  terms  are  frequently 
placed  in  the  winter  months,  so  that  the  pupils  can  return  to 
practical  building-work  during  the  summer.  Paragraph  89  of 
the  German  Military  Law  allows  pupils  who  have  passed  the 
final  examination  with  honors  certain  privileges  in  going  in  for 
the  examination  for  the  one-year  voluntary  military  service. 

Most  German  building-trade  schools  have  been  equipped  for 
building  above  ground,  but  some  few  also  embrace  underground 
building,  as  well  as  iron  construction  and  concrete  building.  In- 
struction in  German  trade  schools  for  building  above  ground 
generally  embraces  the  practical  subjects,  construction,  drawing, 
the  theory  of  building  and  composition,  and  also  the  preparatory 
subjects,  such  as  algebra,  plane  geometry,  geometry  of  solids, 
and  trigonometry,  physics,  chemistry,  projection,  freehand  draw- 
ing, modeling,  surveying,  and  the  study  of  materials.  The  only 
general  subjects  are  German,  the  theory  of  business  and  law, 


42  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

and  arithmetic,  including  cost-estimates.  The  number  of  weekly 
lessons  is  on  an  average  forty-four,  so  that  the  weekly  number 
during  the  five  half-yearly  terms  amounts  to  two  hundred  and 
twenty.  In  the  department  for  underground  building  some  of 
these  subjects  are  curtailed  in  order  to  gain  time  for  instruction 
in  earthwork,  road-building,  canal  construction,  bridge-building, 
railway-building,  and  the  theory  of  machinery.  The  principal 
part  of  the  hours  for  instruction — about  one  hundred  and  ten — 
is  engrossed  by  the  technical  subjects,  while  only  twelve  to  fifteen 
hours  remain  for  general  subjects. 

I  do  not  wish  to  say  that  this  peculiarity  of  the  German 
building  schools  is  worthy  of  imitation.  In  fact  far  too  little 
attention  is  paid  to  general  culture  in  most  German  technical 
middle  schools.  In  this  point  they  compare  unfavorably  with 
the  French  and  Austrian  schools.  I  shall  return  to  this  subject 
later  on,  and  only  remark  here  that  the  reorganization  of  build- 
ing schools  in  Austria  of  December  17,  1909,  bears  witness,  in 
my  opinion,  to  a  deeper  insight  into  the  essence  of  true  technical 
culture.  According  to  the  regulations  of  this  organization  it 
is  to  be  the  task  of  the  new  trade  schools  for  builders  to  foster 
the  study  not  only  of  technical  subjects  but  also  of  those  pertain- 
ing to  general  culture,  with  a  view  to  supplying  the  trade  with 
men  whose  education  is  not  inferior  to  that  bestowed  in  the 
general  middle  schools.  Consequently  these  schools  entitle  their 
pupils  to  the  one-year  voluntary  military  service  and  exempt 
them  from  the  theoretical  part  of  the  master  builders'  examina- 
tion. The  Austrian  schools  receive  pupils  at  the  age  of  fourteen 
with  the  education  given  by  eight  years  in  primary  schools. 
These  schools  consist  of  a  four  years'  course,  which  includes 
thorough  practical  teaching  both  in  school  workshops  and  on 
private  and  public  buildings.  The  first  practical  introduction  to 
the  trade  takes  place  in  the  first  and  second  year  in  the  school 
courtyard.  The  third  year  consists  of  two  winter  half-years, 
interrupted  by  a  summer  half-year  spent  in  practical  service  on 
buildings,  and  only  the  fourth  year  is  devoted  entirely  to  theory. 

I  have  already  mentioned  that  the  lower  middle  schools  for 
builders  in  Germany  lag  far  behind  the  higher  middle  schools. 


TECHNICAL   DAY   TRADE   SCHOOLS  IN   GERMANY  43 

They  are  mostly  attached  to  the  higher  schools.  Only  in  Austria 
have  they  recently  been  made  entirely  independent  as  building 
schools  for  artisans.  They  consist  there  of  two  technical  courses 
of  five  months  in  the  winter;  the  conditions  of  admittance  are 
graduation  from  the  primary  school,  apprenticeship,  and  three 
years  in  a  continuation  school. 

The  schools  for  metal-workers  and  builders  were  not  founded 
originally  to  meet  the  requirements  of  trade  and  industry.  This 
was,  however,  the  case  with  the  schools  for  textile  industries. 
The  introduction  of  the  power-loom  turned  the  workman  him- 
self into  a  machine.  All  that  he  had  to  do,  or  that  he  still  has 
to  do,  is  to  watch  the  unvarying  movement  of  a  machine  that 
is  complete  in  itself.  He  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  process 
of  weaving  and  nothing  with  the  building  of  the  machine.  Thus 
he  generally  lacks  any  kind  of  stimulation  from  without,  and 
consequently  remains  devoid  of  any  higher  mental  or  technical 
development.  Yet  even  the  textile  industry  requires  intelligent 
workers  who  can  be  made  use  of  as  foremen  and  directors.  This 
fact  led  manufacturers  to  demand  the  establishment  of  lower 
schools  for  weaving  and  spinning,  and  in  some  cases  even  to 
take  the  matter  into  their  own  hands.  In  other  districts,  where 
weaving  was  extensively  carried  on  at  home  in  the  winter  months, 
schools  were  founded  in  order  to  give  peasants'  daughters  and 
servants,  and  young  men  as  well,  an  opportunity  of  at  least 
learning  how  to  make  linen,  half-linen,  and  cotton  fabrics  for 
personal  use.  This  last  object  was  the  origin  of  the  numerous] 
weaving  workshops  in  Hanover  and  Silesia.  As  the  artistic 
taste  for  hand-woven  carpets,  curtains,  and  furniture  covers  is 
increasing  in  Germany,  it  is  not  improbable  that  these  simple 
opportunities  of  instruction  will  spread  still  farther  in  poor 
districts,  as  has  been  the  case  in  Sweden.  Later  on,  after  the 
number  of  power-looms  had  multiplied  exceedingly,  and  the 
processes  of  weaving  wool,  cotton,  linen,  silk,  and  velvet  had 
been  correspondingly  developed,  the  sons  of  manufacturers  be- 
gan to  feel  the  need  of  higher  schools.  The  foundation  of  these 
higher  schools  was  also  favored  by  the  desire  on  the  part  of 
the  manufacturers  to  make  themselves  independent  of  foreign 


44  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

countries.  In  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  young 
men  who  wished  to  learn  the  secrets  of  weaving  were  forced  to 
go,  at  great  expense,  to  Lyons,  where  both  public  and  private 
weaving  schools  had  long  existed. 

German  industry  was  also  greatly  hampered  by  the  difficulty 
of  procuring  patterns,  and  the  necessity  of  training  pattern 
draughtsmen  became  self-evident.  Courses  in  drawing  had  be- 
come especially  indispensable  in  the  schools  for  the  woolen  in- 
dustry, in  which  the  pattern  is  generally  attended  to  by  the  same 
employee  who  has  the  post  of  supervision  in  the  machine-room. 
The  higher  weaving  schools  could  be  made  use  of  for  this  pur- 
pose. A  factory-pattern  drawing  school  was  soon  attached  to 
the  oldest  German  weaving  school,  in  Elberfeld,  founded  in 
1845.  A  second  weaving  school  was  founded  in  1854  at  Muhl- 
heim  on  the  Rhine,  and  a  third  in  1855  at  Krefeld.  The  Elber- 
feld school  was  also  enlarged,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  manufac- 
turers, by  a  chemical  department  for  dyers,  printers,  and 
bleachers.  In  the  same  manner  the  development  of  German 
trade  made  it  necessary  to  add  commercial  courses  to  the  weav- 
ing schools,  for  the  instruction  of  clerks  in  drapers'  shops  and 
factories  in  the  knowledge  of  wares  and  the  processes  of  work 
in  the  different  branches  of  the  textile  industry.  And  finally 
the  weaving  schools  are  sometimes  combined  with  courses  for 
dressmaking,  frequented  mostly  by  female  pupils.  These  courses 
are  most  numerous  in  Berlin,  the  principal  seat  of  dressmaking 
in  Germany. 

The  technical  middle  schools  for  textile  industry  are  particu- 
larly developed  in  Prussia,  where  they  were  reorganized  in  the 
year  1896,  as  a  result  of  conferences  held  between  the  directors 
of  the  weaving  schools  and  experts  in  the  trade.  The  influence 
of  the  textile  industry  made  itself  particularly  felt  on  this  occa- 
sion in  the  specialization  of  the  different  schools  in  the  various 
districts  in  the  kinds  of  weaving  for  which  they  were  required. 
In  this  point  also  the  technical  middle  schools  for  the  textile 
industry  are  distinguished  from  those  of  the  metal  and  building 
trades.  In  the  latter,  as  opposed  to  the  textile  schools,  there  is 


TECHNICAL  DAY   TRADE   SCHOOLS   IN   GERMANY  45 

a  strong  tendency  toward  unification,  special  stress  being  laid  on 
the  technical  basis  common  to  all  the  different  branches  of  the 
trade.  Later  on  Bavaria  followed  the  example  of  Prussia. 

In  the  conditions  laid  down  for  the  admission  of  pupils  to 
the  lower  and  higher  weaving  schools  it  became  clear  that  neither 
state  nor  municipality  had  the  same  need  for  skilled  technical1 
workmen  in  textile  branches  that  they  had  in  the  metal  and 
building  trades.  Admittance  to  the  higher  and  lower  middle 
schools  is  generally  granted  to  all  pupils  in  possession  of  a  fair 
school-training.  It  is  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  director  to 
exclude  pupils  with  insufficient  training  from  the  higher  schools. 
One  year's  practical  work  is  usually  required  of  the  pupils  before 
entrance.  The  higher  weaving  schools  generally  comprise  three 
half-yearly  courses,  and  the  lower  weaving  schools  have  gener- 
ally a  half-year  course ;  in  each  half-year  course  there  are  about 
forty- four  lessons  a  week.  In  the  higher  schools  these  lessons 
are  divided  among  the  following  subjects :  setting  up  the  frames, 
putting  in  and  taking  out  the  patterns,  machines,  materials,  dyes, 
designing,  and  the  law  concerning  the  trade.  These  subjects  are 
treated  differently,  according  to  whether  the  school  is  arranged 
for  the  woolen,  half- woolen,  linen,  half -linen,  jute,  or  cotton 
industry.  The  lower,  half-year,  weavirig  schools  deal  with  the 
same  subjects,  which  are  of  course  considerably  reduced  in 
amount.  The  number  of  day  trade  schools  for  the  textile  in- 
dustry in  Germany  is  twenty-seven.  There  are  in  addition  a 
great  number  of  workshops  and  schools  for  teaching  weaving, 
lacemaking,  and  embroidery. 

Besides  these  three  large  groups  of  public  trade  schools,  sup- 
ported with  public  money,  by  the  state  and  municipalities,  with 
which  we  must  also  reckon  the  South  German  trade  schools 
for  the  wood  industry  (which  are,  however,  without  exception 
devoted  exclusively  to  the  training  of  master  artisans),  there  still 
remain  a  certain  number  of  trade  schools  dispersed  through  the 
country  in  the  service  of  the  most  various  trades,  and  supported 
partly  by  public  money,  partly  by  employers'  associations,  partly 
by  purely  private  means.  Saxony  is  the  country  that  possesses 
the  greatest  number  of  trade  schools.  It  would  take  us  too 


46  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

far  to  discuss  these  schools,  although  "we  should  meet  very 
interesting  institutions  among  them,  especially  adapted  to 
be  of  use  in  smaller  trades.  Day  trade  schools  with  a  longer 
and  a  shorter  curriculum  are  also  attached  to  these  German 
continuation  and  artisans'  schools.  For  instance,  day  trade 
schools  for  joiners,  art-locksmiths,  jewelers,  goldsmiths,  book- 
binders, stone-carvers,  decorators,  machine-drawers,  and  build- 
ers are  affiliated  with  the  continuation  schools  in  Munich.  These 
trade  schools  seek  to  inspire  new  life  in  handicrafts  that  here 
as  in  all  other  countries  have  suffered  cruelly  from  the  advance 
of  industry.  There  are  similar  day  trade  schools  connected 
with  continuation  schools  in  most  German  towns.  The  most 
prominent  among  these  are  the  German  art-handicraft  schools 
(Kunstgewerbeschulen},  of  which  at  present  about  forty  are 
supported  by  public  money,  and  which  embrace  a  great  number 
of  different  day  trade  schools  for  different  branches  of  art- 
trades. 

Before  I  conclude  let  me  recapitulate  the  foregoing  state- 
ments and  at  the  same  time  institute  a  comparison  between  the 
German  and  the  American  schools.  We  may  say  that  most 
German  day  trade  schools  had  their  origin  in  endeavors  to  im- 
prove the  condition  of  small  trades.  They  commenced  at  a 
time  in  which  industry  played  no  important  part  in  Germany.  In 
the  same  measure  as  industry  developed,  and  still  more  when 
the  state  began  to  require  capable  technical  workers  of  a  middle 
grade,  did  these  day  trade  schools  also  begin  to  expand  beyond 
the  limits  of  their  first  purpose.  The  next  step  is  the  division 
into  two  departments,  an  upper  one  for  better  trained  technical 
assistants  and  a  lower  one  for  artisans.  The  imperial  German 
labor  law  had  an  extremely  favorable  influence  on  the  develop- 
ment of  this  lower  department.  But  the  manner  of  their  origin 
proves  that  they  were  not  meant  to  replace  apprenticeship  to  a 
master  or  manufacturer;!  on  the  contrary,  they  more  or  less  pre- 
suppose practical  schooling  in  trade  and  industry,  and  make  it 
their  office  to  fill  the  gaps  left  by  this  purely  practical  schooling, 
to  widen  practical  experience,  to  teach  the  working  classes  the 
science  and  art  of  their  vocations,  and  as  far  as  possible  to  give 


TECHNICAL  DAY   TRADE   SCHOOLS   IN   GERMANY  47 

them  a  business  training.  The  system  of  apprenticeship  is  not 
dying  out  in  Germany.  Thanks  to  the  imperial  German  labor 
law  and  the  continuation  and  lower  trade  schools  it  has  fostered, 
and  thanks  as  well  to  institutions  for  the  furtherance  of  trade, 
and  the  consequent  increase  in  skilled  production,  apprentice- 
ship has  gained  in  educational  value  not  only  in  trades  but  also 
in  industries.  Schools  that  replace  apprenticeship  are  rare  in 
Germany.  In  Austria  and  Switzerland  schools  of  this  kind  have 
existed  for  the  last  twenty  years,  but  during  these  twenty  years 
they  have  remained  at  a  standstill.  Nor  can  I  discover  any 
strong  inclination  in  these  three  countries  to  spend  public  money 
on  such  schools.  These  countries  have  also  kept  the  primary 
school  free  from  specialized  industrial  education.  On  the  other 
hand,  during  the  last  ten  years  we  have  been  continually  laying 
more  stress  on  the  introduction  of  manual  training  into  the 
elementary  schools,  or,  as  I  express  it,  on  the  transformation. 
of  textbook  schools  into  working  schools.  In  the  Munich  pri- 
mary schools  we  have  in  the  eighth  class  five  hours'  wood  and 
metal  work  a  week  for  all  boys,  needlework  and  domestic  science 
with  teaching  in  the  school  kitchen  for  all  girls.  In  many  Ger- 
man schools,  as  well  as  in  Swiss  schools,  and  still  more  in  Swed- 
ish schools,  we  find  the  demand  of  the  Circular  of  the  New 
York  Education  Department  of  February,  1910,  to  the  effect 
that  industrial  arts  of  a  more  general  character  are  to  be  intro- 
duced in  the  primary  grades  as  well  as  in  the  grammar  grades, 
more  and  more  frequently  realized. 

If  I  seek  to  compare  German  and  American  trade  schools, 
I  find  that  our  higher  trade  schools  most  resemble  your  technical 
colleges.  Only  we  must  not  forget  that  there  is  no  transition 
contemplated  from  our  higher  trade  schools  to  our  technical 
universities,  and  that  one  or  two  years'  practical  work  must 
either  be  presented  or  taken  in  special  preparatory  courses  be- 
fore admittance  to  the  school. 

Our  numerous  lower  trade  schools  have  no  counterpart  in 
the  United  States.  The  trade  schools  of  the  United  States  are 
generally  intended  to  take  the  place  of  apprenticeship.  The 
German  trade  schools  on  the  other  hand  are  intended,  with  few 


48  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

exceptions,  to  make  up  for  the  deficiencies  of  apprenticeship. 
Only  the  trade  schools  for  girls  take  the  place  of  apprenticeship, 
because  no  good  system  of  apprenticeship  exists  for  girls'  trades, 
such  as  millinery,  dressmaking,  cooking,  kitchen-management, 
shirtmaking,  etc.,  as  it  does  for  boys.  If  in  Germany  the  system 
of  apprenticeship  should  ever  approach  to  a  similar  decay,  then, 
in  my  opinion,  there  would  be  no  other  plan  for  industrial  schools 
than  the  establishment  of  specialized  trade  schools  for  all  trades, 
beginning  at  the  close  of  the  elementary  school  and  extending 
over  four  years.  For  there  are  only  two  roads  for  the  indus- 
trial education  of  the  masses :  either  a  good  system  of  appren- 
ticeship, with  trade  schools  that  supply  the  wants  of  and  broaden 
education,  as  do  our  Munich  continuation  schools,  or  specialized 
trade  schools.  There  are  no  other  means  to  this  end.  Capacity 
in  industry  and  trade  flourishes  only  on  the  soil  of  early, 
thorough,  and  many-sided  technical,  business,  and  civic  training. 
If  the  public  life  does  not  give  this,  then  the  public  school  must 
give  it,  or  industry  will  decay.  The  intermediate  industrial 
schools  recommended  by  the  above-mentioned  circular  of  the 
New  York  Education  Department  will  perhaps  help  this  result 
in  the  United  States,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  may  grow 
unawares  into  specialized  trade  schools.  Furthermore,  the  prin- 
ciples inculcated  by  the  same  circular  for  the  organization  of 
these  trade  schools  are  excellent,  especially  the  three  which  de- 
mand "that  the  trade  schools  should  absolutely  abandon  all  col- 
lege-preparatory work,  that  all  instruction  in  mathematics  and 
science  must  be  such  as  to  be  directly  usable,  and  that  trade 
schools  must  necessarily  take  on  varying  forms  in  different  lo- 
calities." These  trade  schools  then  become  admirable  institu- 
tions for  the  affiliation  of  continuation  and  evening  schools, 
precisely  as  they  are  in  Germany.  But  before  we  proceed  to  a 
system  of  trade  schools  spread  over  the  whole  country  and  in- 
tended to  replace  apprenticeship,  we  should  first  make  the  most 
detailed  inquiries  as  to  the  causes  of  the  decline  of  the  old 
system  of  apprenticeship  and  use  every  means  at  our  disposal 
to  stop  it.  For  however  good  such  trade  schools  may  be,  they 


TECHNICAL  DAY   TRADE   SCHOOLS  IN   GERMANY  49 

have,  besides  their  immense  cost,  other  defects  which  have  so 
far  considerably  checked  their  diffusion  in  Europe, 

It  is  of  course  beyond  doubt  that  at  the  present  moment 
the  German  trade  schools  are  of  great  use  to  German  trade  and 
industry.  But  it  is  not  easy  to  determine  to  what  extent  the 
day  trade  schools  have  contributed  to  the  development  of  Ger- 
man industry  and  commerce.  It  appears  to  me  certain  that 
they  have  not  been  the  prime  factor. 

I  pointed  out  at  the  beginning  that  the  number  of  men 
turned  out  by  the  Prussian  higher  schools  for  machine-building 
is  far  too  small,  even  if  one  half  were  to  join  the  ranks  of  in- 
dustry every  year,  to  be  of  any  appreciable  influence.  The 
middle  trade  technical  workers  required  yearly  by  German 
industry  must  amount  to  at  least  tenfold  the  number  now  fur- 
nished by  the  schools.  I  can  give  you  a  still  stronger  proof 
of  the  truth  of  this  assumption.  In  the  course  of  this  year  the 
Bavarian  government  had  occasion,  for  the  purpose  of  reor- 
ganizing the  building-trade  schools,  to  make  an  inquiry  in  the  one 
hundred  and  forty- three  districts  of  the  country  as  to  the  num- 
ber of  independent  builders.  They  asked  what  percentage  had 
passed  through  the  building-trade  school.  The  number  of  inde- 
pendent builders  in  the  one  hundred  and  forty-three  districts 
of  the  kingdom  amounted  to  nine  thousand  four  hundred  and 
one.  Among  these  there  were  only  six  hundred  and  seventy-two, 
or  7  per  cent,  who  had  passed  through  the  entire  curriculum  of 
a  building-trade  school,  and  fourteen  hundred  and  sixty,  or  15^2 
per  cent,  who  had  taken  single  half-year  courses.  Thus  nearly 
80  per  cent  of  all  independent  builders  had  been  to  no  trade 
school  at  all ;  many  of  these  had  been  to  a  higher  general  school, 
and  many  had  enjoyed  no  other  teaching  than  that  of  the  pri- 
mary and  continuation  schools. 

Considerable  influence  on  industrial  education  will  probably 
be  exercised  by  the  continuation  schools  of  the  German  Empire, 
which  have  recently  undergone  a  remarkable  extension.  These 
schools  are  also  supported  by  public  money.  Their  influence 
is  naturally  greatest  in  towns  and  states  in  which  their  organiza- 
tion, like  that  of  Munich,  provides  not  only  drawing  and  com- 


50  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

mercial  training,  but  also,  by  means  of  workshops,  purely 
technical  training  as  well.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
these  continuation  schools,  which  begin  where  the  elementary 
school  ceases  and  carry  on  the  education  of  all  youthful  workers, 
whether  apprentices  or  not,  without  exception,  from  their  four- 
teenth to  their  eighteenth  year,  raise  the  standard  of  character 
in  the  masses,  who  without  them  would  be  mostly  without 
secondary  education.  Thanks  to  these  continuation  schools, 
even  the  poorest  and  least  favored  by  circumstances  need  not 
remain  without  further  education.  And  thanks  to  the  fact  that 
the  German  continuation  schools  appeal  to  the  vocation  of  the 
pupil  and  turn  it  to  account  as  the  starting  point  of  education, 
every  youthful  workman  can  profit  by  them  in  his  own  particular 
calling.  In  states  outside  Prussia  there  is  hardly  a  town  without 
a  compulsory  continuation  school.  In  the  states  of  South  Ger- 
many there  is  not  a  single  exception. 

I  nevertheless  attribute  the  lion's  share  in  the  rise  of  German 
industry  and  commerce  to  other  causes.  Possibly  one  of  the 
chief  of  these  is  the  German  character,  with  its  tendency  to 
reflection,  its  thoroughness,  tenacity,  and  capacity  for  subordina- 
tion. Another  cause  is  perhaps  the  German  merchant,  with  his 
flexibility,  his  adaptability,  and  his  zeal  in  the  study  of  foreign 
languages  and  foreign  conditions.  A  third  cause  may  have 
been  German  poverty.'  Before  1870,  when  the  German  Em- 
pire became  a  great  political  and  at  the  same  time  a  great  eco- 
nomic power,  Germany  was  a  poor  country.  Now  nothing  is 
better  calculated  to  develop  the  innate  forces  of  a  people  than 
poverty.  The  mental  versatility  of  the  Germanic  races,  Swedes, 
Norwegians,  Scotch,  and  English,  is  possibly  chiefly  to  be 
ascribed  to  the  fact  that  they  have  been  forced  for  thousands 
of  years  to  strain  every  nerve  in  the  struggle  against  fate.  One 
of  the  best  weapons  that  poor  races  possess  for  this  struggle  is 
their  faculty  of  dispensing  with  things.  The  Germany  of  today 
has  grown  rich  within  one  generation.  It  remains  to  be  seen  if 
it  has  strength  enough,  in  spite  of  its  wealth,  to  work  and 
struggle  in  the  sweat  of  its  brow.  History  generally  teaches  the 
contrary.  Yet  our  overpopulation  and  the  tension  existing 


TECHNICAL  DAY   TRADE   SCHOOLS  IN   GERMANY  51 

in  all  other  civilized  states  may  perhaps  supply  us  with  the  same 
motives  that  we  formerly  owed  to  poverty. 

One  factor,  however,  has  certainly  been  of  eminent  impor- 
tance in  the  development  of  German  industry.  That  is  the 
scientific  training  of  German  engineers ;  in  other  words,  the 
serious  scientific  spirit  that  rules  in  our  German  technical  uni- 
versities. In  the  great  decisions  of  the  battlefield  it  is  the  ca- 
pacity of  officers  and  leaders,  with  their  military  discipline  and 
their  iron  sense  of  duty,  that  turns  the  balance  of  the  day.  A 
small  band  with  the  right  man  at  its  head  may  cope  with  ten 
times  its  number  under  an  indifferent  leader.  The  same  thing 
applies  to  the  technical  officers  on  the  field  of  industrial  fight. 
The  scientific  mind  that  guides  the  German  engineers,  which 
grew  out  of  the  German  middle  schools  with  their  rigorous 
expectations  and  their  firmly  established  school  discipline,  is 
a  chief  factor  in  industry,  equaled  only  by  the  earnest  German 
scholar,  who  devotes  his  life  to  the  investigation  of  purely  scien- 
tific problems  in  the  laboratories  of  our  universities,  without 
regard  to  their  practical  possibilities  and  with  no  concern  for 
material  profit.  When  Professor  Baeyer  in  Munich  spent  years 
in  the  attempts  to  make  artificial  indigo,  before  these  attempts 
were  crowned  with  such  brilliant  success,  it  was  neither  use  nor 
money  that  stimulated  him,  but  only  the  great  problem  of  trans- 
forming inorganic  substances  into  a  color  that  had  hitherto 
been  a  product  of  vegetable  vitality.  And  among  other  eco- 
nomic causes  it  is  certainly  this  spirit  of  unselfishness,  of  devo- 
tion to  an  ideal  aim,  that  has  led  our  technical  officers  of  in- 
dustry to  victory. 

We  thus  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  real  scientific  culture 
in  union  with  that  discipline  of  character  which  teaches  thorough- 
ness and  devotion  to  aims  lying  outside  of  ourselves  are  of  no 
less  importance  for  the  industrial  development  of  a  country 
than  technical  training.  Technical  capacity  alone  will  not  suffice. 
In  my  opinion,  the  German  day  trade  schools  suffer  from  the 
fact  that  they  pay  almost  exclusive  attention  to  technical  train- 
ing. I  have  already  repeatedly  remarked  that  the  courses  of 
instruction  in  our  technical  day  trade  schools  differ  undesirably 


52  VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

from  those  of  our  eastern  and  western  neighbors,  in  the  small 
attention  paid  to  civic  education,  which  is  to  me  identical  with 
the  formation  of  character.  Among  the  answers  given  by  Ger- 
man manufacturers  to  the  inquiry  of  the  German  Committee 
for  Technical  Schools  there  is  one  which  lays  its  finger  on  the 
essential  point  of  all  education : 

A  far  more  important  problem  for  the  machine-builders'  schools  than 
the  exact  amount  of  instruction  in  the  single  branches  is  to  develop  the 
character  and  intelligence  of  the  pupils.  Teaching  suited  to  the  future  call- 
ing must  be  regarded  merely  as  a  means  to  this  end.  We  shall  always  be 
able  to  work  successfully  with  men  of  character  and  intelligence,  whether 
their  schooling  has  led  them  further  in  one  branch  of  knowledge  or  another. 
Knowledge  learned  at  school  can  never  be  more  than  the  simple  rudiments 
of  the  knowedge  gained  by  experience  in  special  work. 

This  lesson  which  a  German  machine-builder  gives  the  com- 
mittee must  be  taken  to  heart  by  the  German  day  trade  schools 
and  all  the  trade  schools  of  the  world.  Technical  instruction  must 
be  regarded  in  the  first  place  as  a  means  of  character-training, 
and  it  must  be  supplemented  by  other  forms  of  instruction  with 
a  view  to  making  it  as  many-sided  as  possible.  In  the  life  of 
great  economic  groups  and  of  nations  there  are  moments,  and 
they  are  the  critical  moments,  in  which  neither  knowledge  nor 
skill,  but  character,  decides  the  day — character  that  has  learned 
to  regard  its  own  egoistic  interests  as  of  no  account  when  their 
sacrifice  is  demanded  by  the  welfare  of  the  community  to  which 
we  belong,  the  welfare  of  the  service  that  we  have  chosen,  the 
welfare  of  the  subordinates  intrusted  to  our  care. 


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